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A 









KENNEDY OF 

GLENHAUGH 


Being a faithful history of the strange happening 
that befell Master John Kennedy., seventh Laird 
of Glenhaugh, in the year of Grace lySg, and 
set forth by Adam Gillicuddy^ Factor 
and General Steward at 
Glenhaugh 


BY 


DAVID MACLURE 

AUTHOR OF “THOUGHTS ON LIFE,” “DAVID TODD, 
A ROMANCE,” ETC. 


ILLUSTRATIONS BY 

MR. WILL CRAWFORD 


NEW YORK 

THE MERSHON COMPANY 


PUBLISHERS 


Library of 

OfffOQ 0 f tll9 



KegUfor of Copyrights^ 





55946 


Copyright, 1900, 

BY 

THE MERSHON COMPANY. 


^SCONO COPY, 

S-'XVA- 

T'tV.'uIc.V'J 0.0 


TO MY MOST HELPFUL CRITIC, 


MY WIFE, 













CONTENTS 


CHAPTER pack 

I. My Lady’s Departure, . . . . i 

II. “I Dinna Like the Look o’ It,” . . 12 

III. “ Where Is She the Night?” . . 19 

IV. The Repairing of the West Tower, . 28 

V. “I’m Back at Glenhaugh as I Left,” . 37 

VI. “What o' Those Wha hae Done Great 

Wrang?” 51 

VII. The Words of a Witch, ... 60 

VIII. “ The Laird’s Gane Daft,” ... 69 

IX. The Voice of a Spirit, .... 80 

X. Wandering in the Glen, ... 89 

XI. Sir Gilbert Launston, . . . .102 

XII. “ I’ve A Long Story for You,” . . 114 

XIII. “You’re a Fine, Merry Devil, Cour- 

TRAY,” 126 

XIV. At the Gateway of the King’s ChAteau, 135 

XV. “ What Think You of the Laird Now?” 154 

XVI. “ I Think You Are but a Doure Man,” 171 

XVII. The Remorse of a Great Wrong, . . 180 

XVIII. “ I Hae a Message for Ye,” . . .198 

XIX. “ I Thank God for the News You Bring 

Me,” 208 

XX. “ Forgive Me for the Wrong I Did Ye,” 222 
vii 







KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


CHAPTER I. 

MY LADY^S DEPARTURE. 

A SPIRITED and adventurous folk were my 
Laird's people, with a grand name for loyalty 
to conscience and justice, and never the folk 
to plot or plan an evil thing, nor yet to suffer 
a wrong at any man’s hand to go unrepaid, 
and to this day in all of our part of the country 
to its farthest corners you may hear many a 
tale in honor of them, and their pith and dar- 
ing are well remembered, and are as fireside 
proverbs. 

The last Laird, my master, was a man of 
the most worthy traits, and I am sure no man 
lived that could truly speak a word to his dis- 
credit, for the name of Kennedy of Glenhaugh 
was held among all people as a warrant of very 
honorable and sterling character. A man he 
was as well both lovable and loving, being 
God-fearing and just, and having, as I can 


2 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


bear witness, a heart single to the cause of 
virtue and a hand ever open to charity. 

My master was just the sweetest man, I 
think, that walked the earth, and it was ever 
like a glint of sunshine the sight of his face. 
A most approachable man was he with one 
mood unchanging, and that both free and 
kindly, and indeed if he had need to be serious, 
it was never in his manner to be either sour or 
sulky, or to open his lips to speak a cruel or 
bitter word. A jovial, bluff, and genial man, 
outspoken, fair, and affectionate he was, and 
when his spirits were high, fond of a bit of 
pleasantry, and no man readier to have a hearty 
laugh. He had, as well, a most easy manner 
of speech, using the familiar Doric of the peo- 
ple about him, and indeed among all men, both 
high and low, he was held in esteem as a man 
of wise counsel, fair speech, and very affec- 
tionate heart. I dwell upon these things the 
more, in view of the strange happenings that 
came, and to make known the virtues of a life 
that ere long came to be most grievously 
troubled and changed. 

As for m.y Lady, it was little fault any could 
find in her, for she was truly a woman of gentle 
manners and even temper, having a quiet dig- 
nity about her to command the respect of all. 


MV LADY'S DEPARTURE. 


3 


and even if she could not win the love that the 
Laird got, yet I am sure there was never a 
tongue to speak ill of her more than to say 
she was a bit reserved and distant, and not 
like to take many into her confidence. I some- 
times looked at my Lady and thought I saw in 
her the traces of some past trouble, and yet 
I cannot say that I saw this clearly, but as a 
dim thing only, as if it were the faintest shadow 
of some cloud that had hung over her and had 
passed long ago. 

It came about when I had been at Glen- 
haugh for seven years, and was well installed 
in the performance of my duties as steward, 
that my master was called away on a long 
journey to Stirling, in the North, to see about 
a parcel of land lying in the neighborhood of 
the ‘‘ Links o’ Forth,” and being entangled in 
the meshes of a legal dispute. We made great 
preparation for getting him off properly, for 
the road was a long one, and it would be a 
month at least before he could be back at Glen- 
haugh, even if all went well with him. At last 
he was gotten off, and I was left in charge of 
affairs till his return. 

I well remember his leave-taking of his wife 
and his wee maid Marion, who was just pass- 
ing her sixth year. My Laird just took my 


4 


KENNEDY OP GLENHAUGH. 


Lady in his arms, and she clung about his neck 
as though she were never to see him more, 
and as for the lassie Marion, she made matters 
terribly affecting with her childish prattle and 
affection, so that I was fain to turn away to 
keep from making a fool of myself, and 
showing them all what a soft-hearted body I 
was. 

Thirteen days was the Laird away from 
Glenhaugh, when there occurred an event 
which was the first in the strange chain of cir- 
cumstances that was to follow, and which cast 
a shadow upon us never to be forgotten. 

It was the evening of the thirteenth day of 
the Laird’s absence, when old Geordie, the car- 
rier, coming along the highroad from Abbey- 
font, left a packet with me for my Lady of 
Glenhaugh. I took the packet into the house, 
and when I had gotten to the door of my 
Lady’s apartment, I knocked, and my Lady, 
coming to the door herself, took the packet 
from me, and thanked me as was her habit, for 
she was never the woman to forget to be both 
mannerly and dignified. 

The next day came Esther Ricalton, my 
Lady’s maid, to me, and says, “ I wadna say 
but my Lady has heard bad news o’ some kind, 
for I heard her sobbin’ and moanin’ through 



SHE JUST STARTED AND TURNED WHITE AS IF SHE HAD 

A WRAITH.” 


SEEN 


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MV LAD VS departure. 


1 


the nicht, and this mornin’ she looks a guid ten 
years aulder than she did yestreen.” 

“ I brought her a letter yestreen,” said I, 
using the common manner of speech which was 
natural to me, “ and belike some o' her friends 
are dead.” 

‘‘ It maun be so,” said she, ‘‘ for I saw ye 
gie her the packet, and was in the room wi' her 
when she opened it. She just started and 
turned white as if she had seen a wraith, and 
gave a groan so pitifu' like as if her heart were 
crushed within her. Not a word did she say 
to me, and I ken nae mair than this, that she 
suffered wi' some sair trouble o* mind a' the 
nicht; but she's a proud woman and a close- 
mouthed, and ne'er a word has she to say.” 

I did not see my Lady that day, but I heard 
from Esther again that, “ Her een were red 
wi' weepin',” and that the lass Marion she had 
kept by her side aye fondlin' o' her and 
greetin' o'er her.” 

The next day, which was the second after 
I had handed her the packet, my Lady sent for 
me. I left my accounts and went to her room 
where I found her alone, Marion being off to 
pluck gowans in the Abbey Glen with Esther. 

My Lady received me with her usual court- 
esy, though she appeared a very sober woman. 


8 


KENNEDY OE GLENHAUGH. 


and yet I saw no signs of tears in her face. 
She was more beautiful and dignified, I 
thought, than I had ever seen her, and she 
carried herself as proudly as a queen, but for 
all that, there was about her the sweetest and 
most gentle graciousness that ever woman 
had, and she was just grand, I thought, in 
keeping control of herself and her grief, so 
unlike the common raft of auld wives in our 
part of the country, who snivel and yowl and 
rock themselves when sorrow comes near 
them. 

‘‘ Good Master Gillicuddy,” said she, when 
she had offered me a chair and closed the door, 
“ do you think the Laird has gotten to Stirling 
by this? ” 

“ If all has gone weel wi' him,’" I said, “ he 
is now there safely lodged, and weel into the 
business that took him there.’’ 

“ And how long, think you,” she asked me, 
“ will he be in concluding all his plans there ? 
You are well acquainted with all that is to be 
done, and will know, I am sure.” 

“Aye, my Lady,” I answered, “the Laird 
has fully explained everything to me, and in- 
deed, as to the business in hand, he wad no’ be 
able to see the end o’ it for far mair than a fort- 
night frae the day he left Glenhaugh.” 


MV LADY'S DEPARTURE. 


9 


She paused to think a minute, and turned 
away her head partly, biting her lip as if in 
anxious perplexity what next to say, and went 
on : “I think I must leave Glenhaugh at once. 
I think there be yet time to reach the Laird 
before he is ready to return, and — if I should 
by any evil chance miss him, and — we should 
not meet — you may say to him — that he may 
just bide till I come back.*’ 

After I had got my breath, for I was stag- 
gered by this sudden turn in our quiet routine 
of life, I asked : '' And Marion, the wee lass, 
what o* her? ” 

“ She will stay with you, good Gillicuddy, 
and you will look after her welfare truly, I 
know,” and I could see that she checked a 
sob that was rising in her throat as she said 
this. 

That I will, my Lady,” I said. 

She never opened her lips to tell me a word 
more of the mystery of it all, but turned away 
in silence, and I could read in my Lady’s face 
that it would not be wise to seek for more than 
she offered, so after a long audience with her 
touching upon other matters, and she had given 
me many charges as to how I was to conduct 
all things, and cherish her wee lass till her re- 
turn, I took my leave of her and set about the 


10 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


hasty preparations to get her off to her husband 
at Stirling. 

The next morning saw my Lady’s leave- 
taking of her wee lass Marion, and all the 
women in the house swore to be mothers to 
her till my Lady came back. Ah ! but my Lady 
was a tender woman, and the love she bore her 
wee lass, as I now look back to it, was most 
deep and beautiful. It was as though she could 
never get off, but must aye cling to the bonny 
wee thing, and tear herself away with a great 
effort, ever to come back again and clasp the 
bairn passionately to her bosom and lay her 
cheek close to hers in a yearning and pathetic 
caress, but no tear did she shed. Her heart 
and her love were more eloquent in her face 
than any words could ever tell, and I thought 
I had never witnessed so intense a passion of 
mother love as this beautiful lady showed to 
her wee maid. As for the lass herself, she just 
gave back the measure of all she received in 
the most beautiful simplicity of a child’s af- 
fection, twining her arms about her mother’s 
neck, and nestling close to her with a sweet- 
ness and gentleness of feeling that was like 
to make us all who saw it just give way alto- 
gether and let the tears run down our cheeks 
as they would. At last, with a brave agony, 


MV LADY'S DEPARTURE. 


II 


for I mind it well, my Lady just drew the wee 
lass to her, and then raising her eyes upward, 
as though she asked heaven to watch over the 
child, she gave a sob of the deepest sadness and 
turned away. 

Ah, I can never forget the piteous white face 
I saw then, nor the brave, resolved purpose that 
was written there in the beautiful, sad counte- 
nance of my Lady. ’Deed, the memory rests 
upon me as I write, and I must pause a bit, for 
a mist of tears is gathering in my old eyes. 
Never did my Lady look back, but once, and 
that was when she was at the turning of the 
approach that leads to the Abbeyfont highway. 
There, as I stood beside her, holding the door 
of the coach, and she about to enter, she turned 
and looked to Glenhaugh, and there, between 
the west towers, on the high stair platform the 
wee lass Marion was standing bravely wav- 
ing her hands, with the servants standing below 
her at the court entrance huddled together with 
their aprons at their eyes, trying to smile 
through their tears. As my Lady looked for 
one brief moment she kissed her hand and 
smiled, but under her smile there was a look 
of the bravest, sweetest anguish, and though 
her eyes were just swimming in water, yet I 
saw no tear fall from them. 


CHAPTER 11. 


'' I DINNA LIKE THE LOOK O^ IT.'’ 

A FORTNIGHT went by, and we were begin- 
ning to speak of the return of my master and 
his Lady, and in another week we were all busy 
at Glenhaugh in getting everything in order to 
receive them back to their own house and hall, 
and were expecting every post-chaise that came 
through from the north to land them at Abbey- 
font, the nearest posting town, where Hughie 
McNaughton was waiting with suitable con- 
veyance to take them up and bring them home. 

We had made our preparations for their 
home-coming with not a little pride, and we 
looked forward to a very gladsome time. Wee 
Marion was not behind in the spirit of the oc- 
casion, but was all happiness and anticipation, 
and Esther and she had been up to the Abbey 
Glen, and the two had brought home a wealth 
of late wild flowers and green vines, which 
were disposed about the house to evidence the 
beauty of the welcome we had to offer. Espe- 


13 


“/ DINNA LIKE THE LOOK O' IT." 13 

cially in my Lady’s apartments we had decked 
the walls, and over my Lady’s cabinet had 
banked wild flowers till the place was a fairy 
bower. 

When the post-chaise passed through Abbey- 
font, there was my Laird, but not my Lady. 
Hughie McNaughton and the Laird were not 
long in coming to the point on the situation of 
things, and the Laird was sorely harassed, hav- 
ing not set eyes on his wife or heard of her 
since the day he left Glenhaugh. He came 
on to the house with haste, and I was the 
first to meet him there. He was terribly 
wrought up and anxious, putting me to my 
mettle to answer all his questions. 

“ The Lady left a packet for ye,” said I. 
“ It wasna left in my hands, but she said ye’d 
find it on the cabinet.” 

‘‘We’ll read the packet,” said he, “and we’ll 
get the mystery solved frae that.” 

He went to my Lady’s room and searched 
high and low, but no packet was there, and 
nothing that would tell him aught of the cause 
of his wife’s journey. 

“ I canna understand the loss o’ the packet,” 
said he, “ there’s a mystery about it, and cursed 
be evil fortune for that.” 

“The words she spoke to me were, my 


14 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


Laird/’ I said, “ ‘ Ye’ll just say to him that he 
maun bide till I come back.’ ” 

He only replied, “ I canna understand it. I 
dinna like the look o’ it,” and I thought I saw 
in him an awesome terror and misgiving that 
trouble was coming upon him. 

My Laird searched every place where a letter 
might be concealed, and I gave him my help. 
We ransacked every shelf and drawer and dis- 
turbed every corner, but no paper or packet 
could we find to throw light upon my Lady’s 
journey. 

In two days, no word coming of my Lady, 
and no packet coming to light, my master set 
out diligently to make inquiry and search, and 
I did all I could to help him; but nothing 
could we learn. The Laird went back to 
Stirling searching step by step, and I posted 
letters to every quarter where intelligence 
would be like to be had. 

At Stirling, after a keen inquiry, naught was 
learned beyond the fact that my Lady had not 
been there. All the way back, at every town 
and hostelry the most faithful inquiry failed 
to give a clew to her presence, though there 
were two or three evidences of my Lady’s hav- 
ing passed through the first stages of her jour- 
ney, but these evidences were indeed so vague 


“/ DINNA LIKE THE LOOK O' IT." IS 

and contradictory that they brought no result 
of importance that could be of service or 
that could bring about any tangible out- 
come. 

We failed not to post letters to every place 
where my Lady had friends, and answers came 
back that gave us no hope or clew, but my 
Laird was like a ferret and tracked every path, 
and so from one quest to another he went, 
seeking her in many quarters, but still without 
avail. 

A fortnight went by, and a fortnight after 
that, and we had been busy in search of my 
Lady without rest, and all the people of our 
side of the country had heard of the story, and 
had lent their powers to discover her where- 
abouts, but still no track or trace of her could 
be gotten. 

My master was now worn out by his search 
and his sufferings. It had been weeks of 
anguish and overstrain that he had seen. 
Every hope that had arisen had failed him, 
every journey had been vain. The days had 
been passed in such nerve-harassing activities 
and anxious, hurrying confusion that time 
seemed to have lost itself and vanished into 
a waste of chaotic hours with no defining 
periods or limits. The nights had lost their 


1 6 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

significance of rest, and were become fever- 
oppressed and dream-haunted. 

As the days followed one another, I could 
see the cruel marks they were leaving upon my 
master, and I was powerless to bring to him 
any counsel or comfort, and but for the faith 
I ever had in God’s wisdom and goodness, I 
truly think I would have given way to despair 
utterly. When I saw my master’s eyes roll 
wildly in his head, and watched the nervous 
twitching of his fingers, and the awful starts 
he made as though he heard sounds and voices 
in the silence, I felt that his mind was upon the 
brink of a precipice that affrighted me more 
than the shadows of death. 

By the Almighty, Gillicuddy,” said he to 
me, I think this be but living the life o’ the 
damned, but I’m no’ the man to sit and suffer 
like an auld wife wi’ the rheumatism. Na, 
na. I’ll hae the mystery o’ it solved, my man, 
if I hae to snuff the air o’ a’ the quarters o’ 
the globe; aye, and if I hae to delve i’ the 
bowels o’ the earth, and by God’s wounds,” 
said he, “ I’ll get at the bottom o’ it yet, and 
if there be a creature that has done amiss, and 
laid this wrang upon me, there shall be nae 
mercy, I swear, and these hands o’ mine shall 
hae vengeance, i’ faith quick and sure.” 


DINNA LIKE THE LOOK O' IT:* 17 

He was terrible to look at as he spoke, and 
he brought his great hand down on the table 
where we stood, that was like to shatter it, and 
I saw the blood start from the flesh where it 
was tom by the blow he struck. His face was 
angry and flushed, and his eyes were wild and 
bloodshot, burning like coals, and he was the 
picture of a man like to do some cruel and fear- 
some thing. 

‘‘ I dinna think ye are wise to let yersel’ 
gang into a frenzy like this,” said I. “ Calm 
yerser, my Laird. Look, man, wi^ yer mad- 
ness ye hae brought the blood to yer hand.” 

I think my master gave me the first and only 
hard words that he had ever spoken to me. 
He turned upon me with a vicious frown, and 
I truly thought he was about to fell me with a 
blow. 

“ Talk no’ to me o’ calmness,” he said, “ lest 
ye rue it. Ye’d do weel to leave me, man, 
or I may do ye a sair bodily harm. There be 
a curse o’ hell come upon me, and I wad strike 
ye to the earth i’ the face o’ God himsel’ if ye 
put yersel’ before me to hamper my mood wi’ 
so little as a straw.” 

I left him sadly enough, and I can truly say 
that far from anger and resentment being in 
my mind at his words, there was only a great 


1 8 KENNEDY OF GLENHAVGH. 

pity and anxious love within me, and I thought 
my heart would never be lightened of the load 
it bore. I went to my room with a heavy 
heart, and the horror of his words, so pro- 
fanely spoken, ringing in my ears, but I could 
find no other thought to dwell on than pity, 
and I just fell prone upon my bed and wept 
for him. 


CHAPTER III. 


“where is she the night?” 

We were living in a hush of life now after 
the hurly-burly and movement that we had 
passed through for weeks past, and the people 
who had been busy about us, giving their help 
and sympathy, were now gone off about their 
own affairs, and not like to take further hand 
in the matter than to gossip at their own 
homes of it and wonder at the mystery of it 
all. 

I had not had extended speech with the 
Laird since he had sworn to solve the mystery 
of his lady's loss, now two days gone, but I 
was well aware that he was not seeking rest 
or like to seek it, but was just putting all the 
energy of his being into some matter bearing 
upon his trouble. He kept within his own 
apartments during these days more than 
usual, I thought, and that was strange to me, 
but I soon learned the nature of his occupa- 
tion. 

I had gone to his room to seek advice upon 


*9 


20 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


some matters of duty, and when he opened 
the door to my knock, I saw a scene of con- 
fusion. Every press and cabinet, every shelf 
and closet and corner had been ransacked and 
searched again and again, and my master 
stood among the confusion, flushed and ex- 
cited, with his hand to his head, and his fin- 
gers nervously twitching in the tangled mass 
of his hair. He paused at my errand, and an- 
swered my question with an impatience that 
was far, far out of the way of his speech, and 
when I turned to go, he cried to me in a sort 
of exultance of tone: 

“ Eh, Gillicuddy, and we could but find the 
packet that was left, it wad hae a story to 
tell.” 

“ Aye,” said I, but Fm thinking it canna 
be found.” 

Nay, Gillicuddy, if it was left, it must be 
found. It canna be so lost and hidden as 
she.” 

But a’ places hae been searched,” said I. 

‘‘ Weel,” he replied, ‘‘just gang yer way, 
and leave me to gang over the hunt again.” 

I remember that when I left him standing 
in his room, I went away with misgivings of 
dread, wondering what the outcome of all 
this wild unrest would be; and it was with a 


“ WHERE IS SHE THE NICHT?*^ 21 

sore heart and a mind distracted that I went 
to bed that night with a prayer that I offered 
on my knees to God, that in his gracious 
providence he would remember us all, and 
give us strength to bear the burdens laid 
upon us. 

It was after midnight when I awoke and 
heard the solemn stroke of the clock far down 
the stair in the great hall. I lay awake, and 
my thoughts went back to my Laird again: 
“ My poor, poor master, God pity you,'’ I 
said to myself, and just at that moment there 
was my master standing beside my bed fac- 
ing the window, and the faint light of the 
moon was shining on his wild and flushed 
face. 

'' Gillicuddy,” said he, are ye sleeping? ” 
and his voice was hollow and husky, and I 
thought there was a tone of jeering mockery 
in it, and a sneering touch of malignity so un- 
like him. 

I half arose from my bed and answered him, 
“ No, I’m no’ sleepin’, and in the name o’ God 
what brings ye here in the clouds o’ the 
nicht? ” 

He uttered a sound like a choking sob, and 
then he bent down with his mouth close to 
my ear and whispered huskily, “ Gillicuddy, 


KEI^NEDV of GLEl^HAUGff. 

could ye mak' a guess where she is the 
nicht? 

God only knows,” said I. 

And he hasna been o’ a mind to tell,” he 
said, and there was a wicked sneer in his tone. 

“ Hoots, man, hoots ! ” I answered, for I 
was familiar with him in my talk, ‘‘Ye 
shouldna say that.” 

He squared his body before me, looking at 
me steadily, and after a pause said: 

“ Gillicuddy, was I no’ a guid man to 
her? ” 

“ That ye aye were,” I answered, and I 
spoke but the truth when I said it. 

“ Oh, Gillicuddy,” said he, and this time his 
voice was piteous and pathetic, and a great 
sob shook his frame, “ I loved that woman, 
she was a’ there was in life to me, and oh, 
Gillicuddy, I think my heart is breakin’.” 
Then he sat down on the edge of my bed and 
buried his face in his hands, and sobbed aloud 
with a great and uncontrollable passion of 
grief. 

I did not know what to say, there was a sa- 
credness in his great grief; a noble, strong 
man sat there in the night’s silence, and his 
sole companion was the spirit of sorrow. 

At last, when I could swallow the lump in 


“ WHERE IS SHE THE NICHT?'* ^3 

my throat and steady my voice, I spoke, and 
I felt like one who has intruded into the hal- 
lowed place of the heart’s sanctuary. “ Good 
master, be a man; ye hae suffered sairly, but 
God has given his promise to those that sor- 
row and are weary laden.” 

He started up in a mood changed and sud- 
den, and an ugly glance was in his face and 
an angry sneer was in his tone. “ And tell 
me, Gillicuddy, where is this God that 
promises so muckle? I canna find him.” 

“ ’Deed, dear master,” said ye should 
find him in yer heart.” 

‘‘ Weel, he’s no’ there,” he cried out 
harshly; ‘‘ he’s but an absentee God, and I 
think there be no other thing but hell and the 
deil aye chucklin’ in his sleeve.” 

Then he seemed to utter a sound like a 
laugh, and there was a weird, uncanny tone in 
it that made me tremble with dread. 

Oh, my dear man,” said I, I hinna the 
heart to gainsay that ye hae suffered sair, or 
to vex ye wi’ ony word o’ mine spoken 
thoughtlessly, but ye do a great discredit to 
yer manhood, and do but cast reproach on 
God’s greatness when ye lose faith in the wis- 
dom and goodness o’ his providences. Oh, 
my Laird, God kens a’ things, and orders a’ 


24 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


things, and his hand will fashion a’ things 
aright.” 

He laughed outright, and I think I never 
heard such a wicked and sneering laugh. It 
sounded in my ears like the laugh of Satan 
himself, and the fierce, scoffing cruelty of it 
was terrible to hear. I looked up at him in 
terror to see him fallen so sadly from the con- 
dition of his own true, gentle self. His face 
was transformed, and the features that had 
been so manly and kind were drawn into hard 
and harsh lines, and I thought, as he stood 
before me in the dim, yellow light of the 
moon, that I had never seen so cruel a face. 
While I was yet trembling with dread, and 
with the echo of his mocking yet in my ear, 
he turned and clutched me by the shoulder, 
and I felt his fingers pressing hard on my 
flesh like iron. 

“ Listen to me, Gillicuddy,” he hissed, ‘‘ I 
hae a long journey before me, and nae time 
to waste. Ye maun get me off to Abbey- 
font the nicht, for Tm thinking there may be 
a lugger lying in the Bay o’ Killochan that for 
a price wad tak’ me to France.” 

I was astonished beyond measure at his 
words, as one may well conceive, for he was 
in no state of mind to be left to himself, nor 


“ WHERE IS SHE THE NJCHT?*' 25 

yet to begin a journey. I was of a strong 
mind to remonstrate with him as a bounden 
duty, but I dreaded sorely to make a bad mat- 
ter worse, and feared to interfere, seeing the 
terrible mood he was in, and having, as well, 
in mind his words of threatening of two days 
before; so I arose, and by dint of industry, 
and yet scarce knowing what I did, had all 
things completed within an hour’s space, and 
the two of us took saddle in the night for 
Abbeyfont, and the pace we took fairly put 
me to my mettle to keep my seat on the nag 
I bestrode, while the Laird just flew before 
me in the dark like a madman. 

It was in the very early morning hours 
when our horses’ hoofs clattered upon the 
quiet streets of Abbeyfont. There we drew 
rein and aroused the landlord at Abbeyfont’s 
principal hostelry, and making inquiry con- 
cerning the sea-craft lying in the bay, we 
found that the Mary Morris, Captain McFad- 
den, would sail at sunrise. Down at the 
quays we found the captain, and after a short 
converse with him, my master had made ar- 
rangements to be taken aboard. Already 
there came to us over the waters of the Killo- 
chan, the voices of the sailors singing at the 
capstan, and the lights of the Mary Morris 


26 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH, 


were dimly blinking a furlong’s length out 
from the shore. 

You may be sure I had been busy wonder- 
ing at this hasty journey of my master’s. 
That he had found some clew to the secret of 
my Lady’s whereabouts, I had a ready con- 
jecture, but I was inclined to dismiss it as but 
little within likelihood. My conclusion was 
finally that the whole matter was best ex- 
plained by my master’s restless spirit, and his 
discontent at biding quiet when the excite- 
ment of travel and search might give him 
some relief from his anxiety and uneasiness. 

I confess I found it quite beyond my 
powers to restrain divers remarks by which I 
sought in a roundabout way to get at my 
master’s plans, but he was not to be entrapped 
into any reply that gave me one whit of satis- 
faction, so I gave up further attempt till the 
moment when the Laird was about to board 
the lugger and had a grip of my hand in fare- 
well, when I made one last effort, and asked 
in desperation: 

'' And where might ye be off to, my 
Laird? 

To hell,” said he, with a wicked laugh. 

** And when will ye be back? ” were my 
next words. 


“ WHERE IS SHE THE NICHT?*' 


27 


He never answered me a word, but turned 
and stepped into the small boat that was wait- 
ing at the quay to carry him out to the lugger. 
The next moment the oars were dipping to 
the water, and my master's face was turned to 
the sea. As I stood looking after him, the 
day began to dawn, and in its gray light I 
watched the Mary Morris hoist sail and glide 
away through the mists of the morning, and 
with a heavy heart and a mind confused with 
anxieties I turned my face to Glenhaugh with- 
out breaking fast, leading my master’s horse 
with empty saddle, at my side. 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE REPAIRING OF THE WEST TOWER. 

It was a time of great confusion and excite- 
ment in France when my master left us, and 
I knew not but his journey would be one of 
great hazard and peril. We had gotten in 
our land, from time to time, account of the 
doings there which showed us plainly that 
evil was brewing, and that the government 
would likely be sorely put to in maintaining 
its authority. Since the French King, Louis 
XVL, had convened the Assembly, and 
brought together the three estates, there had 
been such a stirring up of all matters political, 
that no man might prophesy what the end 
would be, but when we had gotten news of 
the fall of the Bastile, with all the terrible 
commotion in which Paris found itself the day 
after, indeed it needed no prophet to foretell 
far worse to follow. Rumors were brought 
to us every day of the woeful things that were 
coming to pass, and every emigrant was tell- 
ing a story of anarchy and violence. It was a 


REPAIRING OF THE WEST TOWER. 29 

time when no man was safe in Paris, the mob 
being masters of the city, the Assembly being 
at its wits’ end, and poor Louis, the king, 
just biting his finger nails in a dilemma, sorely 
disturbed because his subjects would not be- 
have themselves and leave him to mend locks 
in peace and quiet. 

With all this in view, and my master de- 
mented with his troubles, starting off on an 
unknown errand, there was no wonder that I 
was in a worry of mind like to bring me down 
with a fit of sickness, and all this following 
upon the evil days we had come through since 
my Lady’s disappearance. Foreby the great 
weight of responsibility fallen upon me, now 
my master was away, was like to turn my 
brain, and make me rue the day I had ever 
set foot in Glenhaugh. 

As I rode home from Abbeyfont that morn- 
ing after I had seen the lugger lost in the mist, 
I had time to think of all these matters, and 
what with these on my mind, and a termagant 
mare with a gall on her withers beneath me, 
not to speak of an empty stomach, I was a 
sour and wretched man when I got back to 
Glenhaugh. Now that my master was gone, 
and I was left alone, you may be sure that a 
trust was mine that would claim all my best 


30 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

efforts, and so I set myself to maintain with 
dignity and shrewdness my office of steward- 
ship, and be ready to give a good account of 
it on my master’s return. 

Before my master’s troubles began, that is 
to say, before the day when he left us to travel 
to Stirling on the matter of business I have 
related, he had counseled with me about cer- 
tain repairs to Glenhaugh House that called 
for prompt attention, and we had settled it 
that on his return the work should be gone at 
without delay. In the confusion of our life 
that followed that time, no thought had been 
given again to the matter; it being dwarfed so 
completely by the harassing circumstances 
that had arisen about us. The work in ques- 
tion was no other than the repair of the West 
Tower of Glenhaugh, that part of the house 
having fallen seriously into ill condition. This 
tower was one of four, there being at each cor- 
ner of the house a tower arising from the 
ground, and standing out from the main build- 
ing. The West Tower was, I think, of greater 
age than any part of the house, being built, I 
believe, in or about the reign of James IV. 
It was adjacent to the Laird’s apartments, 
indeed the inner wall formed the east side 
of the very apartment once occupied by 


REPAIRING OF THE WEST TOWER. 31 

my Lady. We had observed that a long 
seam or crack in the masonry had become 
visible in my Lady’s room, threatening to do 
serious damage if not attended to, and indeed 
the sag of the wall was so great that a large 
oak cabinet set in my Lady’s room had suf- 
fered such a strain from it that a perceptible 
crevice was beginning to yawn between the 
wall and the cabinet, and I had heard my 
Lady, herself, make complaint that not a few 
of her trinkets and papers had slipped into 
the aperture and defied recovery. 

My master had been away a month when I 
took it into my head to go forward with the 
repairing of the tower, the need being urgent 
and all things at hand prepared for it, and so 
it was that we were soon in the midst of it all 
and tearing away the stones to make room for 
the repairing of the building. In the course 
of the work we came upon an old recess or 
opening back of the oaken cabinet, that I 
have said was built into the wall of my Lady’s 
room, a recess that had long ago been occu- 
pied, I doubt not, by a wide chimney flue, 
which in course of time had fallen into disuse, 
and become entirely obliterated by the addi- 
tion of the West Tower, built by some laird of 
a later day, who had closed up the recess, 


32 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

leaving strangely enough an entire waste of 
space. 

When we had cut into this open space we 
found it more like the shaft of a mine, or a 
well, than any other thing, and looking down 
into it, nothing could we discern but darkness 
like that of Egypt. Indeed I well remember 
the words of Sawney McBride, one of the 
stone masons, as he leaned over, glowering 
into the black hole: 

'' I'd no' say," said he, but we'll a' be 
crackin’ wi’ the deil afore lang, for I just 
think this be the hole that gangs into 
hell." 

We sent a man down by means of a rope 
fastened about his body to explore the depth 
and the darkness. It was Tam Jamieson, a 
worthless beggar living nearby, and who was 
helping to do the heavy work for the stone 
masons. He took a candle with him, but it 
went out after he had been down a short 
while, and he was long in giving us the signal 
to draw him up, so that Sawney McBride 
called down to him: Wad ye like yer bed 
sent down to ye, Tammy?" When he was 
gotten back amongst us, he reported that 
the hole went no further than the ground 
floor, and was as clean and dry as could well 


REPAIRING OF THE WEST TOWER. 33 


be, and but for a bit soot and ashes, and a 
smell like an old fireplace, he found naught 
uncommon. 

I dwell upon this matter for this space for 
the reason that out of it grew some strange 
happenings that were not long in coming to 
pass, and though at this time I paid small 
heed to such matters, dismissing them for 
more pressing business, yet out of them arose 
serious results, as I have yet to tell. 

This same Tam Jamieson that I have named, 
was a ne’er do weel ” who was born in our 
part of the country and reared among us. 
He was ever a most unconscionable liar, and 
well known to have ever a tarry fist, as we say 
of one given to small theft, and if he had 
brought out of that old chimney-hole a pot of 
gold buried by some of the old Lairds of 
Glenhaugh or had found aught of value there, 
no man would have been the wiser or had 
profit by it. However, he brought nothing up 
out of the secret depths that he showed to us, 
except a face begrimed with soot, and a pair 
of blackamoor hands gotten in his groping 
at the bottom in the black ashes, and indeed 
when we pulled him out with the rope, all 
hands crying ‘‘Heave ho!” it was Sawney 
McBride that cried: “ God help us, did I no* 


34 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

say this was the road to hell, and here is the 
muckle black deevil, himser/' 

If Tam Jamieson bore an ill repute among 
us, it was no worse than Auld Tibbie,” his 
mother, had earned, and indeed if it were not 
that she and her son had a hand in our later 
troubles at Glenhaugh, little need would there 
be to dwell upon such an ill-reputed couple. 

Both Tibbie and her son lived up the glen 
back of Glenhaugh, a long league from the 
habitation of man, and near to St. Cuthbert's 
Cairn, a great heap of stones piled there to 
mark the spot where tradition had it that long 
since a monk had been martyred and buried. 
Among the common people of our part of the 
country Tibbie had been given a great reputa- 
tion as a witch. Many a story was told of her 
power with the spirits of darkness, and there 
were folk, even of good repute, that could sit 
a long winter night and tell tales of Tibbie 
and her craft that were both marvelous and 
fearsome. 

If I had the skill to describe her, it would 
be the picture of a fearsome woman I would 
draw, for she liad a wrinkled face of the color 
of leather, and her eyes were sunk into her 
head, so that they did glitter there like the 
eyes of a reptile more than a human crea- 


REPAIRING OF THE WEST TOWER. 35 

ture’s. Her nose was aye threatening her 
chin, and foreby, the corners of her mouth 
were drawn down till they lost themselves in 
the very cords of her neck. Not alone in face 
and feature was Tibbie a woman to affright 
one, but as well was she twisted out of shape 
of body, being bent double so that her spine 
was just a bow, and she walked with a short 
stick in one hand, and the other hand was for- 
ever behind her, pressed upon her hip, and 
the elbow of her arm cocked out behind, 
which indeed made her to be a very crooked- 
looking old wife. All the bairns in the 
neighborhood ran at the sight of her, and in- 
deed there were more than bairns that were 
fain to keep from crossing her path, these 
mainly being in terror of her ill tongue, for 
she had ever some wicked thing to say, and 
the common folk dreaded the evil that she 
might bring upon them. 

It was the next day after we had drawn 
Tammy out of the hole that the head mason 
went down to examine the foundation of the 
wall, and when he was gotten up again, he 
brought back some of my Lady’s small be- 
longings, which he said must have fallen be- 
hind the cabinet and slipped through the 
broken wall. Among the handful of such 


36 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGB. 


small matters, he brought back a wreath of 
withered flowers that had hung over the cabi- 
net on the day of my master's return from 
Stirling. I got a great start, you may well 
conceive, at sight of it, for it recalled that evil 
day when my Lady had left us. It was as if 
I heard a voice speaking to me from the 
grave. Ah, but I trembled when I held it in 
my hand. The touch of it conjured up all the 
memories of our sad tribulation, and all the 
mystery grew darker and more terrible as I 
looked upon its flowers faded and withered. 
As I held it, my eyes grew moist, and as it 
crumbled away in my hand and fell rustling 
to the floor, I could stand it no longer, but 
was fain to go to my room, there to let my 
tears fall, and as they fell, there was one sad 
cry in my heart that rose above all others, and 
it was: ‘‘ My poor, poor master, God pity 
you! " 


CHAPTER V. 


back at glenhaugh as I left/* 

Two months after the Lady’s departure, 
Esther Ricalton, meeting me in the court, 
said: 

“ Eh, man, but ye put me in mind o* the 
auld steward, yer uncle.” 

‘‘ And a faithfu’ steward he was,” said 1. 

“ Aye,” said she. “ And a steward wi* an 
unco’ short temper.” 

’Deed,” I answered, ‘‘ I dinna wonder 
at it.” 

Yer uncle had ae great fault,” said she. 

“ And what was that? ” said I, ‘‘ for I hae 
nae doot that yer judgment o’ a man’s faults 
wad be baith valuable and conclusive.” 

‘‘ He was aye like to be a hard taskmaster,” 
she answered, “ and I think ye mind me o’ 
him in that o’ late.” 

Weel, Esther,” I replied, “ I’m sair sorr>'’ 
to hear ye say that, for I ken I hae nae hard- 
ness o’ heart, nor the thought within me to 
domineer over ony o’ my fellows, but ye’ll 


37 


38 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


mayhap bear in mind that the Laird has given 
me a charge to keep, and foreby ye canna 
forget that a’ we hae seen is well fitted to 
mak’ a body just distracted wi’ anxiety and 
fret, and if I seem cruel to ony, or over ready 
wi' a short word, it is because Fm sairly 
troubled for my masters welfare, and hae not 
only his estate on my hands, but his troubles 
on my heart.’’ 

“Ah! Maister Gillicuddy,” she said, soft- 
ened by my words, for I had spoken them 
humbly, feeling that I had received a just re- 
buke, “ I think we may a’ pardon yer wee 
faults, when we think o’ the honest purposes 
ye hae; but ye maun just remember that a’ o’ 
the Laird’s people in hoose and byre are just 
leal and true to the Laird, and bear sic a love 
to him that their hearts are sad and wae for 
a’ the ills he has seen, and a saft word at times, 
and a word o’ praise frae the steward wad, Fm 
thinkin’, be like to sound sweet in the ears o’ 
his people.” 

“ I thank ye for yer words, Esther,” said I, 
“ and Fll try to profit by them, but ’deed I 
wish my Laird were safe at hame, and I had a 
heavy load aff my mind.” 

“ When look ye for the Laird? ” she asked. 

“ ’Deed,” said I, “ there’s nae telling o’ it. 



“ye’ll mayhap bear in mind that the laird has given me a 

CHARGE TO KEEP.” 




BA CAT AT GLENHAVGHr 4 * 

Since he left Glenhaugh no word hae I heard 
o’ him, and what wi’ the story they tell o’ 
affairs in France, and the terrible blood-spil- 
ling in the streets o’ Paris, it’s no’ a prospect 
o’ certainty we can look forward to. I hear 
that the streets o’ Paris are filled wi’ riot and 
bloodshed, and that nae man is safe there.” 

‘‘ Aye,” she said, I hae heard something 
o’ it, but what sudden ca’ had the Laird to 
gang aff to France at sic a time? What was 
it that took the Laird in sic muckle haste to 
travel there, I wonder? ” 

“ It’s sma’ satisfaction o’ answer ye’ll get 
frae me on that matter,” I answered, “ for 
I’ve dwelt mony an hour on the mystery o’ it 
mysel’, and lost mony an hour’s sleep just 
troubling my mind wi’ it. I hae but this to 
say, and I think there be nae mair to say o’ 
it, that the Laird being near demented and 
no’ able to rest wi’ the trouble he had, was 
just wrought up to sic a pitch o’ nervous 
strain, that nae thing wad satisfy him but to 
be aye stirring, and so there was nae rest wi’ 
him, but he maun up in the nicht and aff to 
France wi’ nae mair object in view than to 
obey an irresistible desire to be aye moving 
and searching, even if he had little hope o’ 
finding, though indeed I hae sometimes 


4 ^ 


KENNEDY OF GLENN A UGH. 


thought that some paper or packet might hae 
fallen into his hands that sent him awa’ in sic 
haste/’ 

Aye, but it’s strange things hae come to 
Glenhaugh,” she said, ‘‘ and after a’ is said 
and done, in the name o’ God what’s become 
o’ the Lady? Whar can she be, and what is 
her story? Is she deid, think ye? ” 

“ Deid,” said I, “ and what else? O’ a 
surety, deid is my Lady, and nae other answer 
is there, but in what manner and in what place 
no man can say, and it is my belief that the 
mystery o’ it is past a’ search, and we may 
e’en no trouble oursels mair o’ the deid, but 
bow doon before God in humility and do the 
best we can wi’ the living.” 

There be sma’ reason to doot yer words,” 
said she with a sigh, “ but oh, man, it’s a 
strange and awfu’ thing that has fallen on 
Glenhaugh, and tak’ my word, Maister Gilli- 
cuddy, we hinna seen the end o’ it, and evil 
days are yet to come to the Laird o’ Glen- 
haugh when he comes back to sit i’ the 
shadow o’ the black cloud that is over him,” 

God’s will be done,” I said sadly; ‘‘ we are 
in his hands, Esther, my lass, but the voice o’ 
my faith bids me say: ‘ Trust in the Lord; be 
o’ guid cheer.’ ” 


BACK AT GLENHAUGHT 43 

As I turned to go from Esther with the 
words upon my lips and a tear in my eye, I 
saw her put her apron to her face, and I saw 
that she was weeping. Before I had taken 
three steps she called after me: 

“ Maister Gillicuddy, ye’ll just pardon me 
for ony ill thing I may hae said to ye. Yer 
just grand beside yer uncle. Deil tak’ the 
auld crab! ” 

As I went down the court I could not re- 
strain a bit laugh at Esther’s words, but the 
passing joy of it was like the light of a star 
gleaming for a moment in the vault of mid- 
night. 

Another month had passed and still I heard 
no word of my master. I had learned, as the 
time went on, terrible rumors of the doings in 
France, and knew not what to think of my 
master’s welfare if he still continued there. I 
had gotten news of the bloody and cruel mobs 
and the havoc and riot that disturbed all 
people there, and there had come the news 
that a great concourse of mad folk had 
marched from Paris to Versailles and among 
woeful deeds had insulted the King, and 
carried him with dreadful circumstances back 
to Paris and imprisoned him there. 

With all these tales of fearful occurrences 


44 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

that were said to be of daily happening, with 
far more terrible things that it was said were 
like to happen, I was gravely disturbed, for 
not a scrape of a pen had the Laird sent me; 
at least never a word from him had reached 
us at Glenhaugh, and we were just getting 
to think that the Laird’s absence was 
wrapped in much the same mystery as my 
Lady’s. 

I think it was in the later days of Novem- 
ber, for I call to mind that the nights were 
frosty, and the winds were rustling in the 
haystacks and the leaves were sweeping into 
the hollows, that I sat at my table after the 
cares of a hard day and was pondering the 
future, wondering what in God’s mysterious 
providence it held for us all, when I heard a 
footfall outside of my door. It was late, and 
as my room was at the top of the house, being 
in one of the towers and rarely frequented, I 
was the more quick to take note of it and to 
wonder who wandered there. I listened and 
heard it again close by my door. I got up 
and opened the door wide, holding the candle 
before me. Its light shot out into the dark 
landing at the head of the stair, and there be- 
fore me stood a tall man in a garb that was 
not common in our parts, being more after 


•‘BACK AT GLENHAUGH:' 45 

the manner of the French costume. He wore 
upon his head a chapeau, such as the French 
gentlemen of quality wear, and his long plum- 
colored coat with its overlapping cape was 
buttoned over his breast. About his neck 
there was a white embroidered cravat, worn 
high and close to the chin, so that he looked 
like a courtier of Louis’ Court at Versailles. 
For the rest of his habit, which I unconsciously 
saw, for I was surprised beyond measure at 
such a strange intrusion, he wore his hair 
brushed back and tied with a^bow, and his feet 
were in long topboots. As he stood in the 
uncertain light which my candle flashed into 
the shadowy landing, all of his appearance 
was that of a stranger come from a journey, a 
man foreign to me in every way, but espe- 
cially strange and unknown to me was he in 
face and feature as I could dimly discern. A 
tall man he was and a haggard, dark and som- 
ber of face, with hollow cheeks and sunken 
eyes gleaming wild and frowning under his 
brows. There was a hard, cold smile upon 
his lips, and I could not help thinking he was 
a man determined and cruel of heart, and I 
stared at him with not surprise alone but with 
trembling and fright. As I stared, holding 
the candle before me, he advanced boldly and 


46 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH, 

I Stepped back into my room, muttering some 
confused words of courteous import. Before 
I could finish my sentence he spoke, reaching 
forth his hand to me, and I would have fallen 
to my knees with weakness had I not leaned 
back on the wall for support, as I heard his 
voice: 

'' Weel, Gillicuddy, and is yer master so 
changed that ye greet him as a stranger? I 
had nae gotten back to Glenhaugh so safely, 
my man, wi’ these French clothes that so 
sairly puzzled ye, but for a bit o’ the hand- 
writing o’ the Count Mirabeau.” 

It was the Laird’s voice of a verity, and 
here was my master before me, back to his 
own house of Glenhaugh. 

I looked keenly into his face, and it was my 
kind Laird of Glenhaugh I looked at. I put 
forth my hands and trembling with emotion 
said: 

I welcome ye back wi’ a’ my heart; but 
oh, man, ye are changed in more than dress. 
Ye hae seen trouble since I saw ye.” 

** Aye, Gillicuddy,” said he, “ and I hae a 
mind to think I’ll never see aught but trouble 
again.” 

“ Then,” said I, ‘‘ ye hae heard nae guid 
news o’ my Lady? ” I said this feeling that 



AS I STARED, HOLDING THE CANDLE BEFORE ME, HE ADVANCED 


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BACK AT GLENHA UGH. ” 49 

already my question had been answered in the 
terrible traces of sufYering upon him. 

His eyes glared at me with a wild look, and 
his mouth had a sullen and harsh expression 
as though my inquiry irritated him, and he 
showed plainly he was determined to keep his 
own counsel and speak no more of his trouble. 

“ We’ll say nae mair o' the past,” said he, 
but this I will say: there's naught but terror 
and bloodshed in France, and a' men are mad 
wi' the sight o' it. There has been great 
wrang done, and they wha do wrang maun 
abide their punishment; but, Gillicuddy, I will 
tell ye ae thing that ye'll do weel to mind: I'm 
no’ to be questioned. The past doesna sit weel 
on my stomach. I’ve naught to tell, and ye 
see I'm back at Glenhaugh as I left.'' 

That was a strange answer, I thought. I 
would fain have followed up my questions, 
but I had a great dread upon me that my mas- 
ter's mind was unsettled by his troubles, and 
that to press him more closely would do but 
serious harm. I feared him now, as well, for 
his look was that of a man not to be trifled 
with, and he was that nervous and excitable I 
could see that a small matter would cause him 
to do some desperate act of rashness. I saw 
that he had come back a wreck of his former 


so KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

self, and I did not wonder that he dreaded to 
have the past kept before him, so I left the 
matter as I found it, and made a resolve to 
stand between my master and all people who 
might seek to probe into his troubles and renew 
the pains that he had borne. 

I saw my master safely bestowed and bade 
him good-night, and the old life of every-day 
things began again at Glenhaugh, but it was a 
feverish and unnatural existence; for the 
Laird was sullen and silent and never resting, 
a man unhappy and uncompanionable, having 
no traffic with any man and shut up in the 
prison of his own broodings, looking out on 
the world, frowning and distrustful as one 
embittered at life. 


CHAPTER VI. 

“ WHAT THOSE WHA HAE DONE A GREAT 
WRANG? ” 

What would be the outcome of this fever- 
ish, unhappy life we were leading at Glen- 
haugh I could not tell, but I feared it as the 
mariner fears the roar of the breakers on an 
unknown coast. 

Whatever thing had come to my master, 
whether in France, or grown out of the tor- 
ture his mind had suffered, he was a man in 
all ways changed, and as sour and disagree- 
able a man as ever drew breath. Little inter- 
est did he take in the affairs of his house, and 
sat the most of his time with an ugly frown on 
his haggard face, brooding alone over his 
troubles. He would hardly give one of us a 
civil answer, and if I approached him, he 
scowled upon me as an intruder, and gave 
speech to me in a manner that was ungrate- 
ful and cruel. He seemed to be ever watch- 
ing us all through the corner of his eye when 


5 * 


52 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

we came into his presence, and indeed he re- 
minded me more of a savage animal driven 
into toils, than a Christian creature. 

Not only had he grown sour to his own 
household, but inhospitable and forbidding to 
his friends, and stubbornly refused to meet 
them, so that those who came to see him had 
to leave as they came, wondering at his griev- 
ous disregard of them. At last the whisper 
began to go about that the Laird of Glen- 
haugh had gone daft, and indeed I was of the 
same belief myself, for no sane man could have 
looked upon life and God’s creatures as he 
did, nor could any man having the grace of 
God within him have uttered the blasphemy 
his lips gave utterance to. 

I think it was barely a fortnight had passed 
since my master’s return, but that fortnight 
was like to a far greater space of time, when 
Geordie Gillespie, one of the house servants 
and ever a meddlesome body, came to me late 
in the afternoon of a dull, cold day, and said: 

It’s little pride the Laird has, by George, 
and he’s no’ vera choice o’ his company.” 

‘‘And what company o’ ill-repute keeps 
he? ” said 1. “ Has he taken ye into his 

bosom? ” 

“ ’Deed no, but he micht do maur,” re- 


“ THOSE WHA HAE DONE WRANG^ S3 

plied Geordie. What think ye o’ auld Tib- 
bie for a friend o’ the Laird’s? ” 

‘‘Ye speak in riddles,” said I. “What 
mean ye? ” 

“ That the Laird and Tibbie are great the- 
gether,” said he. 

“ Geordie,” said I, “ if ye hae ony sense to 
speak, oot wi’ it and dinna blether.” 

“ By George,” said he, and that was always 
his favorite word, “ I hae this to say, that 
auld Tibbie was at Glenhaugh the day, and 
had the ear o’ the Laird, and it wasna half an 
hour after, that the Laird just followed her, 
and I saw the baith o’ them meet at the bum 
and gang up the glen thegether. I maun hae 
yer word, Maister Gillicuddy, that ye’ll no’ 
let on if I tell ye the rest o’ my story.” 

“Ye may trust me,” I said, and I waited 
eagerly to hear what further he had to tell. 

“ I’ll hud ye to yer word,” he said. 
“ Weel, I was so curious to learn mair that 
I just followed up the glen and saw my Laird 
gang into auld Tibbie’s hoose. I wondered 
what he gaed there for, so I just crept up to 
the window at the end o’ the hoose and 
peeped in. There was the Laird wi’ a paper 
in his hand, and as he held it, I could see it 
tremble in his grip, while his face was as white 


54 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH, 

as his shirt, and Tibbie was leanin' on her staff 
and glowerin' at him. It was plain the twa 
had some secret between them, and that the 
Laird was in the power o' her, but I feared 
to be caught at eavesdroppin', and just 
stepped quickly awa', and here I am. But, 
Maister Gillicuddy, the Laird's pride is sairly 
fallen when he sits at the fireside o' sic a body 
as auld Tibbie Jamieson and traffics wi' her 
so far as to be in fear o' her." 

I was astonished to hear Geordie's words 
and puzzled to understand what they implied, 
but I was shrewd enough to hide my astonish- 
ment and so I said: 

It's little ye had to do, Geordie, when ye 
played the spy on the Laird. Can the Laird 
no' do an act o' kindness to a puir auld body 
without some meddler to question it and mak’ 
a clash o' it? Ye'll do weel to mind yer ain 
business, my man, and hud yer tongue, or ye 
may get a lesson frae the Laird ye'll no' for- 
get, for he's an ugly man to cross, and as for 
my Laird's turnin' pale at aught that Tibbie 
can say or do or show, there's nae truth in 
it, and I think it was naught but yer ain pale 
face ye saw reflected in the glass when ye pit 
yer nose against it." 

‘‘Weel," said Geordie, “what I did was 


THOSE WHA HAE DONE WEANG:* 55 


but the interest o’ a frien o’ the Laird’s, and I 
hae a great pride in the name o’ Glenhaugh, 
and it wasna in ony spirit o’ idle curiosity I 
followed the Laird, but ye’ll no’ say a word o* 
it lest it michtna be so easy to convince him 
o’ my feelin’ in the matter; so, Maister Gilli- 
cuddy, ye’ll no’ forget yer promise to me, and 
mum’s the word.” 

That same afternoon I saw the Laird from 
my window coming across the fields from the 
direction of the glen, and though it was late, 
and the darkness of evening thickening, yet I 
could see that he walked slowly, and that his 
head was bent down like a man thinking. I 
did not see him enter the house, but I heard 
his step during the evening in his own rooms 
as I passed by on my way through the halls. 

At ten o’clock at night, as I was on my way 
again by his door, having a duty in that part 
of the house, I heard him still in his room, 
and he was pacing the floor, I knew, in some 
great agitation, for the sound of his step was 
plainly an indication of a change that had 
taken place in him to make him more restless 
than usual. I had gotten but a pace away, 
and was thinking with sore distress what ter- 
rible strain he was under, when his door 
opened and his voice startled me. 


$6 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

Is that ye, Gillicuddy? ” 

“Aye,'' I answered, turning, “is it ony- 
thing ye need? " 

“ Gillicuddy," he said, “ I hae need o’ 
muckle," and as he said it, I noticed that his 
voice was low and subdued, and a tone of in- 
expressible sadness and weariness was in it, 
so unlike the sharp, embittered accents we 
had heard from him since his return from 
France. 

“ Come in, man," he said, “ shut the door 
behind ye; I hae something to say to ye." 

As I entered, he turned from the fireplace 
where he stood, and I saw a flare of light flash 
up from the coals where torn fragments of 
paper flickered and curled. When I had 
closed the door behind me, I stood waiting 
for him to speak. After standing a moment 
or two gazing at the dying flame, he turned 
toward me and taking three steps stood be- 
fore me in silence, and I was at a great loss to 
know what to expect. 

I noticed that his face was drawn into 
an expression of the most painful agony 
of mind, and that his eyes had a wild, 
vacant stare as of one whose very soul 
is affrighted with some terrible thought. 
Not a word did he say, but stood in the middle 


THOSE WHA HAE DONE WRANGT 57 

of the room, nervously clutching a fragment 
of paper, the last remnant of that which was 
turning to ashes on the coals. His head was 
thrown back, so that I could see the whites of 
his eyes gleaming with an unnatural light, 
and he never stopped biting his under lip in a 
ceaseless and wild agitation. At last with a 
great start and a twitch of every feature, he 
seemed to recollect something, or to suddenly 
come to a purpose to speak: 

“ Gillicuddy,” said he, and his voice was de- 
liberate and solemn past all description, 

there be a question o’ Scripture that I hae 
been pondering o’er, and I maun hae yer an- 
swer to it. It is this: ‘ If a man die, shall he 
live again? ’ ” 

I was beside myself with fear of him when 
he said it, but I answered with as much com- 
posure as I was master of: 

‘‘ I’m thinkin’ there’s nae death, my master, 
but that it will a’ be a matter o’ change, and 
that a man will o’ a verity live again.” 

He stared at me intently, and with his 
twitching features at rest while I spoke, as 
though his peace of mind depended on my 
answer. 

“ And tell me, Gillicuddy,” he asked, still 
with the same intense deliberation and solem- 


53 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGB. 

nity; '^what o’ those wha hae done a great 
wrang here, and canna right it, though they 
sairly rue it and hae a great yearning. Can 
they mak’ recompense in another world, think 
ye? ” He bent forward like one who waited 
to hear the prophecy of an oracle, to hear my 
answer. 

’Deed,” said I, a’ things are in God’s 
hands, and he will surely repay for every 
wrang thing, but he is a gracious Master as 
weel, and will gie free pardon to the contrite.” 

‘‘ Then God pardon me, and hae mercy on 
me,” he cried piteously, and at that he sank 
into the chair beside him like a man bereft of 
all energy, limp and wearily, and I thought he 
would sink to the floor. Then he gave forth 
a sound, pitiful and agonizing, and it grew 
into a heart-rending cry of grief, like the 
wail of one engulfed in overwhelming despair. 

I made a step forward to put my hand upon 
him and say the words of comfort and kind- 
ness that were eloquent in my heart, but he 
rose to his feet with a great energy, and his 
eyes shining like balls of fire, and a look of 
horror on his face dreadful to see. For a 
moment he stood rigid and motionless like a 
statue of stone, then throwing his arms for- 
ward with a gesture of one who would shut 


THOSE WHA HAE DONE WRANCr 59 

out some terrible sight, and with a shudder 
of the most intense horror and dismay he 
uttered a wild shriek frenzied and shrill, that 
echoed through the stillness of the night, and 
was like to curdle the very blood, and down 
he fell prone upon his face in a deadly swoon. 


CHAPTER VII. 


THE WORDS OF A WITCH. 

I KNOW not how I aroused the house, and 
cannot relate the events that followed during 
all the rest of that unhappy night, but leaving 
these things to be imagined, it is enough to 
say that the morning saw my master lying as 
one dead, and the good Dr. Smilie, from 
Abbeyfont, at his bedside, telling us with a 
serious face that the Laird was at the point of 
death, and naught but a miracle of God’s 
providence, and a bit of his own medical skill, 
could bring him back to life. 

There were long days now, weary watches 
and anxious hopes, for my master lay dead to 
the world, and the doctor and his colleagues 
— for he had brought into the case two skilled 
practitioners from Abbeyfont — could give no 
positive assurances that he would ever arise, 
but shook their heads and pondered. 

At last came Dr. Smilie to me, and said: 
‘‘ Master Gillicuddy, I think the Laird will 
live.” 


6o 


THE WORDS OF A WITCH, 6i 

‘‘ Thank God for the news ye bring me,” I 
answered fervently, for I loved my master 
loyally and his welfare was ever my sincere 
and constant thought. 

‘‘ His mind has suffered a severe strain,” 
continued the good doctor, “ and as a man o* 
your learning kens. Master Gillicuddy, there 
are cases where such a strain leaves sad and 
deplorable ruin.” 

“ God forbid,” said I, that my guid Laird 
should ever rise frae his bed bereft o* the 
greatest o’ God’s blessings, his reason.” 

‘‘ The result will be as God wills,” he an- 
swered, '' but even at the best I fear that his 
mind can never again be trusted to stand a 
serious trial. He must be nursed back to 
health wi’ the utmost care, and sorrow and 
perplexity must be kept frae him.” 

I listened to Dr. Smilie, and grasping his 
hand clasped it warmly and thankfully, and 
promised to guard my master in all ways from 
the perplexities of life and the memories of the 
unfortunate and cruel past. 

The Laird grew stronger and better day by 
day, and at last he moved about among us 
again, the Laird of Glenhaugh, in his usual 
way, though far, far away and changed from 
the Laird that we had once known. He now 


62 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


Spoke but little, seeming to be aye thinking or 
trying to think of something, and keeping 
much of his thought to himself. I could not 
but think that he was still concealing some 
deep feeling within, for there was a pathetic 
look in his eyes that was pitiful to see, and just 
gave me the tenderest feelings for him when 
I looked into his face. With me he was ever 
the same, with never a sour look or hard 
word, and though he came often to me and 
we talked of many things, yet he never spoke 
of my Lady, and in truth I never spoke to him 
nor yet put forth any word that could cun- 
ningly cause him to speak of her or his 
troubles. I saw that if he had aught to say, 
he would say it, and I was too true a friend 
of his to try to probe into the wound he had, 
and add further to his pains. 

That Tibbie Jamieson had given my master 
some mysterious message I was prone to 
think, and I shrewdly determined to have an 
eye to her, and to get at the bottom of the 
matter in a roundabout way in the course of 
time, but it was long before I met her on the 
road, and when I did, she forbade my ap- 
proach, scowling at me and muttering curses 
and shaking her staff at me in a most spiteful 
temper. 


THE WORDS OF A WITCH. 63 

During these days my master spent most 
of his time in wandering over the fields and 
about his own lands. As he grew stronger, 
the habit increased upon him and was con- 
tinued, so that he would be away hours at a 
time, having climbed the hills back of Glen- 
haugh and penetrated to the heart of the glen 
it might be, but I do not think he ever en- 
tered Tibbie’s cot or held converse with her 
at any time. Sometimes he wandered down 
to the shores of the Killochan Bay to sit and 
watch the waves rolling in and hear their 
gurgling among the stones, but wherever he 
went, he was ever the same, a man aimless 
and hopeless, or if a purpose was his, it was 
to wait only, and let the days go by to fulfill 
the appointed period of life. 

Since that terrible night when my master 
had spoken to me of his Lady, and had closed 
his lips with the frenzied blasphemy of his de- 
spair, and had set ofif for France, which was 
many months gone, he had never spoken to 
me a word that bore upon these woeful things 
of the past, nor had his wife’s name ever again 
passed his lips. I had come to feel that time, 
with its softening influences, had brought to 
him a fair measure of reconcilement to the de- 
crees of destiny, and that at last his mind was 


64 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


recovering from the cruel shock it had suf- 
fered. 

Thus day succeeded day, and the months 
went by, and while life with its duties was 
active among us and all things moved onward 
under the spur of ambition and hope, yet 
there, always in our midst, was the good mas- 
ter of Glenhaugh, a living dead man, a man 
who had long ago finished his course, and 
dwelt among us as one who had died and 
come back to us as only the shadow of a man. 

The spring was well advanced, when I 
heard that Tam Jamieson had left our part of 
the country, and no man knew where he had 
wandered, but he was ever a bird of migra- 
tion, and little heed was taken of his going. 
Later I had taken a supply of victualing, ac- 
cording to an old habit, to Tibbie at the head 
of the glen, and in answer to my questions as 
to her son's whereabouts, the crusty old crone 
had replied to me curtly enough that ‘‘ A fule 
was aye askin' questions." 

I think Tibbie was the most ungracious and 
ungrateful old besom man had ever met. 
Her impudence was just past all patience, and 
when she gave me such an uncivil answer, and 
that after I had walked a half league with two 
Stone weight of provender on my shoulders, 


THE WORDS OF A WITCH. 65 

and laid it cheerily at her door, I was to be 
pardoned for losing my temper and saying: 

** Weel, Tibbie, ye're just a sour auld rip, 
and I can but think that for a truth the deevil 
is your maister as a' folks say." 

She turned on me, trembling with rage, and 
shook her stick at me. Her eyes were glit- 
tering deep in their sunken sockets, and she 
hissed in her quavering voice: 

Curse ye, ye gowk, I spit on ye,” and her 
face was just horrible to see as her nose and 
chin came together, and again and again she 
spat upon the ground with a vehemence awful 
to witness. 

Aye, but ye hae a bad tongue, ye wicked 
auld body,” I said, looking back at the door, 
and fain to get away from her. 

She hobbled toward me still muttering, and 
I paused at her words, harsh and uncanny: 

“ Think ye the deil be my master i' faith, 
and for why no'? Ca' my Lady o' Glen- 
haugh, she o' the proud face, and bid her say 
wha kens her story. Aye, there maun be 
truth in what a' folks say, and ye were best 
no' cross me, ye silly peesweep.” 

I turned pale at the mention of my Lady. 
What could the wicked old hag know of my 
Lady or her secret story. I felt a chill like 


66 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


death steal over me, and as I looked at the 
withered old creature before me, there was, 
awakening in my soul, a supernatural terror 
that set my teeth to chattering, but I found 
voice to say: '' And what ken ye o’ my Lady? 
There’s a green sod above her, and her story 
lies buried wi’ her.” 

The eyes of the old beldame blinked at me, 
and sent out a glance of meaning that was 
fearsome and secret, and yet I thought there 
was a kind of glee in it, and on her twitching 
face the semblance of a knowing smile drew 
her features into a horrible grimace. 

There’s mony a cauld corpse that wan- 
ders frae its grave,” she said, and as she 
spoke there was an unholy atmosphere about 
her that wrought upon me, and I could feel 
a terror creeping upon me. She bent for- 
ward, advancing toward me, and pointed her 
bony finger at me, which shook in its palsied 
infirmity. 

I was fairly beside myself with fear of her, 
and yet I mind I sneered at her words, and 
this was the worst I could have done, for it 
wrought her into an unseemly rage, so that in 
a fearful state of mind I turned and made 
away from her as from the presence of the 
Evil One, but the curses she let fall upon me 


THE WORDS OF A WITCH. 67 

rang in my ears till I was at Glenhaugh door, 
and the fright of it did not leave me for many 
a day. 

Tibbie had said enough to mean that she 
was possessed of something of my Lady’s 
story, but I put that aside as a thing of her 
fancy, or quite as like to be a boast without 
foundation, set forth to put a bolster to her 
reputation for supernatural endowments. It 
was ever death or dead men with her, or 
witches and warlocks, brownies and bogles, 
not to speak of paddocks and hoolets, and the 
deil among them in all shapes. That she 
brought my Lady into her claver, and spoke 
of corpses wandering with their secrets from 
the grave, was, I felt sure, of no more moment 
or significance than that it was a secret and 
awful matter, and one which would appeal to 
me with especial force. 

After all my thinking over these things 
I arrived at the conclusion that I would 
get more peace of mind by letting the 
matter drop and dwelling no more upon 
it, but with all my concluding, and the 
conviction that Tibbie was nothing more than 
a miserable old woman, crooked in mind and 
body, and bewitched with the devils of igno- 
rance and superstition, yet I could not shake 


68 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


off a certain fear I had of her, and a vague 
presentiment that there was a strange power 
about her that extended over our lives and 
destinies. 


CHAPTER VIIL 


‘‘the laird^s gane daft/’ 

I HAD been at Abbeyfont on the Laird’s busi- 
ness for a week and returned on foot, getting 
to Glenhaugh late in the evening. When I 
had come as far as the gateway I met Geordie 
Gillespie standing there alone by the side of 
one of the gateposts. When I drew near, I 
could see that something was amiss, and my 
heart came into my mouth as he ran out into 
the road toward me. 

“ Eh, man, there’s been a terrible thing 
happened up at the hoose,” he said in an awful 
whisper, clutching me by the arm. 

“ In God’s name,” I cried, “ what thing has 
happened? ” 

He put his mouth close to my ear and said 
hoarsely, “ The Laird’s gane daft.” 

“ What mean ye, man,” said I, pushing 
him from me, and my heart fairly stopped in 
its beating. “ Has aught o’ ill befallen him?” 

“ And if to gang daft is no’ an ill thing,” he 
returned, with a show of resentment at my 

69 


70 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


words, “ then 'deed the maister's just in his 
or’ner and doin' fine." 

Hoots, ye silly body, and what o' my 
Laird? " 

‘‘ Hearken," he said, coming nearer and 
glancing about in the dark as if he feared an 
uncanny visitor, I'd no' say but auld Tibbie 
is at the bottom o' it." 

At the bottom o' what? " I demanded, 
beginning to lose patience. “ Speak oot, 
man." 

'' At the bottom o' the Laird's awfu' daft- 
ness," he said with his face close to mine, and 
his long nose pointing at me. 

I said no more to him than: “ Curse ye for 
a gomeril," and hurried up the court and into 
the house, where I asked for the Laird. 

He was not in the house, and none of the 
people knew where he was. I made diligent 
search within, and then went out to inquire 
further. The Laird had not been home for 
his dinner, but that was not an unusual thing, 
and no one within or without could tell of his 
whereabouts, though I made active inquiry, 
nor yet was there any unusual news of him 
among them. 

I started out to find Geordie again, think- 
ing I might get at the meaning of his words, 



MY HEART CAME INTO MY MOUTH AS HE KAN OUT INTO THE 

ROAD TOWARD ME. 




“ THE LAIRHS GAME DAETT 73 

and learn something that was doubtless hid- 
den in them, but a servant-lass told me that 
Geordie and another had gone to Dalquhar- 
ran to see an acquaintance who was lying at 
the point of death, so I was fain to content 
myself with waiting, in the hope that the 
Laird would be home before bedtime. 

I went to my office in the West Tower, and 
sat down by the open window facing the Kil- 
lochan Bay, looking out across the court and 
the Abbeyfont highroad to the far vault of 
blue where the sky and water merged and 
melted in the darkness. It was a still night, 
still as death, and the sky was clear, with stars 
sharply glittering in the lift, and only a faint 
breath of wind coming gently in from the sea, 
carrying an odor of brine with it. By the 
light of the stars, for the moon had gone down 
an hour earlier, I could see the waves in long 
lines moving over the surface of the bay, and 
breaking in little crests of white as they rolled 
silently shoreward. 

As I sat I heard the clock down the stair- 
way announce the hour of midnight, and then 
I heard steps coming along the court pave- 
ment. It was not so dark but that I could 
make out two figures approaching as I leaned 
out eagerly, and one of these was Geordie Gil- 


74 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


lespie back from Dalquharran. Downstairs 
I went, and found him in the hall, but it was 
plain that he had seen more than a sick neigh- 
bor at the Clachan, and that the Clachan brew 
had fortified him against any evil spirits that 
might have haunted the long, lonely road 
home. 

When I entered the hall he was trying to 
sing in a weak, maudlin key, an old song I 
had heard in our parts many a time, one verse 
running: 

“ Na saddle tae me the white,” he said ; 

“ Na saddle tae me the brown, 

But saddle tae me the swiftest steed 
In a’ my stables roun’, 

For I will neither eat nor drink 
Till I bring my Lady hame.” 

When he saw me he made a great obei- 
sance, being quite gone in drink, and said: 
“ By George, Maister Gillicuddy, it’ll be fine 
for the Laird, the nicht, and he’ll be like to 
mak’ a guid nicht o’ it in the glen amang the 
warlocks there, but ’deed I saw nane o’ them 
the nicht mysel’, for the Dalquharran yill is a 
grand drink to gar them hud back.” 

‘‘ What ken ye o’ my Laird? ” I asked. 

** Did he no’ tell ye, Maister Gillicuddy? 
Then belike he’s no gotten back frae the 
glen.” 


“ THE LAIRHS GAME HAET:* 


75 


‘‘ What mean ye, man, my master’s being 
in the glen? The Laird wad be mad to wan- 
der i’ the glen at sic a time o’ nicht.” 

Mad, say ye,” he replied, and what with 
drink and his uncanny fancies, there was a 
wild, horrible earnestness in his tone, and his 
watery eyes stared at me, and his long nose 
seemed to wrinkle and sharpen, “ mad, say ye; 
and wasna that what I said to ye lang syne 
when I met ye at the gate? ” 

“ How ken ye my master is at the glen? ” 
said I. 

“ I kenna that he be at the glen the nicht, 
but at the glen he has been, Maister Gilli- 
cuddy, a’ wheen nichts ere this, for these een 
o’ mine hae seen him,” he replied, with a hic- 
cough at the last word. 

“ And was he there last nicht? ” I asked. 

“ Aye, was he, and the nicht before that, 
and yet the nicht before that and mair foreby, 
by George, and it’s a fact.” 

He came close to me with unsteady gait, 
and drawing his hand across his slavering 
mouth, balanced himself before me, and raised 
his unsteady forefinger to be impressive. He 
had drink enough soughing in his head to 
make his speech thick and husky, but yet his 
brains were keener now than when he was 


76 


KENNEDY OP GLENHAUGH. 


sober, and his speech was quite as terse and 
intelligible : “ And let me say to ye, Maister 
Gillicuddy,’’ he said, that the Laird and auld 
Tibbie hae some fearsome business on hand, 
and the auld witch has cast her spell o' evil 
ower him." 

His watery eyes blinked, and he cast upon 
me a look of maudlin wisdom as though he 
had laid before me the results of some deep 
cogitation and deserved well of me for his 
service. I stood in silence watching him as 
he turned away with a hiccough and left me, 
beginning again to tune up to the words : 

“ When my guid Laird cam’ hame at e’en 
Enquiring for his Lady, 

Some did cry, and some made reply, 

‘ She’s awa’ \vi’ the gypsy laddie. ’ ” 

At the close of every line he gave a drunken 
hiccough and his quavering voice was far out 
of tune. But as he left me standing alone, 
there was the echo of that old rhyme he sung 
still running in my mind, and I found myself 
unconsciously repeating the words, and re- 
membering other lines that I scarcely knew I 
had knowledge of. 

I passed out into the great hall, and looked 
up the lonely dark stair. How often had I 
seen my Laird and his Lady coming down 


“ THE LAIRD'S GANE DAFT: 


77 


that same stair in happier days. The words 
came to me as the song had them: 

“ She cam' tripping doon the stair, 

Her fair maids all aroun’ her ; 

As soon as they saw her weel-faured face, 

They cast their glamory ower her.” 

Had some glamour been cast o’er my Lady, 
indeed; and were my Laird and all of us be- 
witched with some cruel spell? Old Tibbie’s 
fearsome presence seemed to come before me 
at the thought, and the clock, heavily measur- 
ing off the minutes in the dead stillness 
around me, I could almost fancy to be the 
sound of her step upon the stair, and that her 
bent and twisted figure might emerge out of 
the shadows that were around me. 

I went out into the court and stood think- 
ing. As I stood in the hush of the night with 
the stars above me and the dark old house be- 
hind me, silent and historic with the mem^ 
ories of generations of lairds and ladies cling- 
ing about it, I heard the clock on the great 
stair again strike out. It was the first hour 
of the morning, and as the sound started sol- 
emnly out of the stillness to die again in 
silence, the very air seemed to die out of the 
night, and an all-engulfing hush like an eter- 
nal death closed around me, oppressive and 


7 8 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

appalling, when, like an echo from far away, 
came a sound stealing upon the breathless air, 
and the voice of one singing broke weirdly 
upon the stillness, and came down from the 
black shadow of the house. I could hear 
again the words of that same old rhyming 
song I had but now dismissed from my mind, 
as Geordie wandered with drunken steps up 
the winding tower stairs, singing in quavering 
tones, broken and maudlin, with frequent hic- 
coughs: 

“ For I will neither eat nor drink 
Till I bring my Lady hame.” 

There was a weird suggestion in the words 
again that recalled my long-lost Lady, and 
they sounded like words from far away, as 
they came down to me in the stillness of the 
night from the tower hanging black overhead. 

I could not think of going back into the 
house and to sleep, so I wandered down into 
the road and looked up and down. Lonely 
enough looked the Abbeyfont road stretch- 
ing away into darkness^ but clear for two hun- 
dred yards under the lights of the stars. I 
stood leaning against one of the tall gateposts 
looking up the road in the direction of Pin- 
lawn and Dalquharran, and it may have been 
but a space before the hour of two of the 


“ THE LAIRD'S GANE DAFT:' 79 

morning when I thought I heard a footfall in 
the stillness. I waited and listened. Again 
I heard it. It was a step approaching from 
the Pinlawn way, and now I could hear its 
regular tramp along the highway, and I knew 
somebody was walking toward me. Soon I 
saw faintly emerging from the darkness a 
figure. It was dim and indistinct, but I could 
see it, and when a few more moments had 
passed I could make out the form of a man 
outlined against the starlit road behind him. 
He was walking along at a fair pace, and his 
solitary form upon the road at that time of 
night, and the startling tramp of his steps in 
the stillness, gave him a character the mystery 
of which made me cower as one in a fright, 
nor was my feeling the less that I could well 
prophesy who it was that was coming to me, 
and still I found myself trembling with 
strange emotion, when my master, the Laird, 
turning in at the gateway, strode up the ap- 
proach to the house. 

And it’ll be just a fine nicht for a dauner 
aboot the country, my Laird? ” quoth I. 

Is that ye, Gillicuddy,” said he, in his 
common way. Aye, it’s a bonny nicht, but 
we’ll just gang in thegether, for I hae a wheen 
questions to ask o’ ye.” 


CHAPTER IX. 

THE VOICE OF A SPIRIT. 

I FOLLOWED the Laird up the court, or rather 
it were more truth to say I walked side by 
side with him, for he had taken a grip of my 
arm in his warm, kindly way, and we two 
went, linking it together, to my master's 
room. 

Not a word did he say for a good five min* 
utes, but sat before me at the open window 
with the mystic faint light of the stars dimly 
showing me his features. At last he spoke. 

Gillicuddy, is it no’ a bonny nicht? ” 

That it is,” said I, and I wondered at his 
words. 

Look oot, Gillicuddy, at the lift, and tell 
me is it no’ a grand thing to see those count- 
less bright stars glinting in this blue dome, 
and shining doon, through sic a vast o’ space 
upon us? ” 

Aye, my Laird,” I said, “ and I think nae 
man can look up at sic a grand spectacle wi’ 


8o 


THE VOICE OF A SPIRIT. 8i 

reverence and awe in his soul, that is no’ a 
child o’ God, for when a man’s nature is 
touched wi’ sic things, it is but the touch of 
divinity, and the great Architect o’ it a’ is 
speaking unto him.” 

He paused for a little, leaning against the 
window, and then said: 

‘‘ Aye, I hae sometimes sat and looked up 
at them till I maist thought I was getting 
nearer them. Aye, but there’s a wheen o’ 
them, and I hae thought that they may be just 
each o’ them a pure soul that has gone before 
and aye waiting there for some soul that has- 
na yet left its earthly prison.” 

I was surprised at this saying of his, for it 
was far and away out of the manner of his ex- 
pressed thoughts, which never in the months 
of his hopeless resignation to Fate’s decree, 
had suggested sympathy with any condition 
of nature or circumstances. Here was the 
first clew to my master’s hidden life, a mo- 
mentary but certain glance into the depths 
within, and a whisper out of his soul that had 
sat with sealed lips through so many long 
days. 

At last I knew that he thought my Lady 
dead and gone, and had still a gentle strain 
of old memories singing like the echoes 


S2 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

of a sweet song in his heart, and I thanked 
God for it devoutly. 

‘‘ 'Deed, my Laird," I said, thinking to 
bring him back to more practical converse, 
for I ofttimes feared that some hallucination 
might possess him, ye hae a thought that 
does ye credit; but, man, there's a bonny earth 
that lies beneath the stars, and there's mony 
a pure soul clad in the garment of flesh. God 
has given man the power to get glimpses of 
the sublime, for the purpose it maun be. I'm 
thinking, that he may just mak' use of its in- 
fluence in this every-day world o' oors. For 
what use can the spiritual be if its holy and 
sublime whisperings be no' to mak’ us hap- 
pier and mair perfect here amang men. Ah, 
my Laird, the stars may e'en shine, as they 
hae shone for ages, but men are just o' anither 
sphere, and may e'en bide their time beneath 
them, and there's an end o’ it.” 

'' And ye think,” said he, listening to my 
words, “ that the spiritual and the earthly are 
no' in communication, do ye? Weel, a' men 
hae different minds, and a’ knowledge is no' 
given alike to men. Noo let me ask ye, 
what think ye o’ the deid? Can the deid 
come to life, think ye? ” 

I was startled by his question, and I began 


THE VOICE OF A SPIRIT. 83 

to have a vague dread of my master’s drift, 
feeling that his question was not one that 
should come from the lips of a man whose 
reason was either natural or wholesome. 

''Can the deid come to life?” I said. 
" And that’s a strange thing for a man o’ yer 
sense and wisdom to ask. It canna be. 
There is nae resurrection o’ the body in this 
mortal life, and there is little profit in asking 
such questions or in meddling wi’ such mys- 
teries.” 

He listened to me with a graciousness 
which was in keeping with his kindly nature, 
and yet I could see that he listened as one in- 
dulgent to another in error of opinion, and I 
thought I saw in his face an expression of 
something like triumphant superiority, as 
though he had some thought and belief that 
gave him confidence in his power to differ 
with me and refute me. 

" Ah, Gillicuddy,” he said, " do ye no’ ken 
that unto some it is given to know the mys- 
teries o’ God mair than others? Man! ye hae 
never been touched wi the hand o’ God; ye 
hae never known the grandest and the di- 
vinest love that man can know enter into yer 
heart and soul, and mak’ ye just blest wi’ the 
joy o’ it. A love far too deep to breathe its 


84 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

last wi’ the breath o’ life, a love stronger than 
death, a love that trembled wi’ the exquisite 
sweetness and satisfaction o’ its ain being. 
My God, Gillicuddy, ye ken naething o’ it; 
o’ the grace and purity and sincerity o’ a 
great love for the loveliest and tenderest 
woman that was e’er made for man to wor- 
ship and absorb into his whole nature; a 
woman that was life and love and hope to ye; 
that gave ye rest and peace and content, and 
made the sun and stars to shine for ye, and 
the fields to grow green for ye. Oh, Gilli- 
cuddy! what ken ye o’ it? Wi’ sic a love that 
comes to man, a man maun be changed, and 
being changed and let into the mystery and 
rapture o’ it, he may weel feel and hear what 
other men never ken. What recks it that the 
grave has clasped its cauld arms aroond 
the body, it canna hold the spirit; but oh! 
would it no’ be fine to get comfort frae its 
words? ” 

I had never heard my master speak of his 
heart’s possessions before, for I knew that 
they were sacred to such a man, but now in 
the depth of his feeling he spoke, and with an 
earnestness which was pathetic and impress- 
ive beyond expression, and I bowed in spirit 
before the dignity of his theme, and felt in- 


THE VOICE OF A SPIRIT. 85 

deed that I could not dare to approach this 
altar of his worship, sanctified as it was by 
the sacrifice of hope and happiness. 

What a weirdly beautiful, aye sublime 
thought was in his soul! Ah, what yearning 
aspirations were his to rise to a spiritual com- 
panionship! Here was my master walking 
among us, and by his side a ghost, a deathless 
spirit ever his companion, to whom he spoke 
as to a living reality, straining his soul’s ear 
to hear and interpret a voice that was audible 
to him alone. A watcher he was, as it were, 
in his lonely night-tower looking out for a star, 
a soul lifted up and bending its gaze to search 
the illimitable spaces of mystery to find the 
substance of a sweet and sacred memory. 

As I sat thinking over the words he had 
spoken, and feeling deeply the power of them, 
he came back to the thread of our converse, 
and said: 

And, Gillicuddy, I would say to ye, that 
what are mysteries to some men are plain to 
others. So while the deid may no’ come 
to life, and the body perisheth, yet the spirit 
lives wi’ us. Aye, Gillicuddy, lives amang 
men, and mair than that, it comes as an indi- 
vidual to men and speaks to them, face to 
face, frae an invisible world,” 


86 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


I was at a loss what to say. What voices 
were whispering to him, I knew not; for that 
every man hears a speech within him unheard 
by other men, I cannot doubt. I wanted to 
be circumspect and considerate, feeling that I 
might readily blunder in further discussion of 
such mysteries, inasmuch as it was plain that 
neither of us could have a perfect understand- 
ing of the other, so I thought I was safe in 
saying: 

Aye, my Laird, what ye say I hae no’ a 
mind to doot, for o’ a verity there is aye a 
still sma’ voice o’ the spirit within us, and it 
is deep that answereth unto deep.” 

He gave close heed to me while I spoke, 
and then shook his head slowly and almost 
despondently. “ Gillicuddy,” said he, after a 
pause, ye dinna understand me, an’ I canna 
blame ye, for ye are just ae man, an I am just 
anither, but this I hae to say, and ye may 
understand me or no’, and ye may think me 
daft or no’, but before God I say that the 
Spirit has a voice that ca’s to the ear o’ sense, 
and has a tongue that is audible to man’s 
earthly sense.” 

I forgot myself for an instant when I heard 
him utter such words, and before 1 could re- 
strain myself I cried with some vehemence: 


THE VOICE OF A SPIRIT. §7 

Lord bless me, man, I wonder to hear 
ye talk sic clavers.” 

r could have bitten my tongue off for my 
hasty words, for in an instant my master was 
aroused far beyond his usual, and getting to 
his feet came close to me, with his finger on 
his lips in a most mysterious and secret man- 
ner, and leaning his body forward to me, so 
that his face came near to mine, said in a voice 
half a whisper, as though he feared its being 
heard: 

“ Gillicuddy, I swear to ye, by the God 
that sits there among thonder stars, by the 
love I bore to her who is lost to me, that 
I hae heard wi’ this ear o’ mine the sound o’ 
her voice, aye, and the words o’ her mouth. 
Aye, she has spoken to me, and called me 
frae oot o’ the grave 

I was completely in terror at his words, but 
I had sense to hide the thought that was in 
me that he was past the bounds of reason and 
gone mad with his trouble, and I was sorely 
anxious to pacify him by seeming to side with 
him and accept in some way his mad fancy as 
rational, so I said: “Eh, my Laird, it’s a 
strange thing ye tell, and micht weel be past 
common belief, but tell me, where did ye hear 
it, and when? ” 


BS KENNEDY OE GLENHAVCH. 

Ah, Gillicuddy,” he answered me, and 
there was a tone of quiet drollery in his voice 
for all the seriousness of our talk, ‘‘ I'm no' 
so daft as ye think me, and if I kenned na' 
that ye are a true man, and wi' a heart warm 
to me, I wad say ye were but triflin' wi' me, 
but deed we hae cracked lang enough, and 
we'll hae baith need o' sleep, so get ye to 
yer bed, and a guid nicht to ye, and here, 
man, let me hae a grip o' yer hand, for, Gilli- 
cuddy, for a' yer doots o' my sanity, I ken ye 
hae nae doots o' my love for ye." 

He grasped my hand warmly and held it in 
his; I looked up into his face and put my hand 
upon his shoulder. Neither of us said more. 
His face was peaceful and strong, but there 
were tears glistening in my eyes as I passed 
out of his room and went slowly to my own 
apartment. 


CHAPTER X. 


WANDERING IN THE GLEN. 

I COULD not but think that at last my mas- 
ter’s troubles and miseries of mind were 
bringing him grievously enough to loss of 
reason, and it was with an anxious mind and 
a sad heart that I contemplated his present 
condition and looked forward with forebod- 
ings of worse to come. Since he had sworn 
to me of hearing the voice of my Lady with 
the ears of sense, he had not by word or act 
approached the matter again, and as for my- 
self, I had kept carefully from naming it to 
him, for I was never a man to come to a 
matter of that kind unbidden, more especially 
with such a self-sincere man as my master, 
whose thoughts were not to be made the 
common property of every meddler. 

There was one thing, and that an essential 
one, that I had not learned, and which I fain 
would have known. It was the matter of my 
Laird’s wandering at night, as Geordie Gilles- 


89 


90 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


pie had avouched with so much earnestness 
and suggested evil of sorcery, and which had 
been continued since my return from Abbey- 
font now three days gone by. I was of a 
mind to seek Geordie again, and get from him 
more than he had told me, but I knew him to 
be such a blethering body, and so keen to mix 
fiction with fact, that I could not but feel my- 
self belittled in having speech with him on a 
matter of serious import where exact truth 
was of paramount consideration, and so I put 
aside speaking to him, and sought alone by 
myself to learn more of my master’s strange 
habit of leaving the house at night, and com- 
ing back when all of us were in our beds. 

I kept a close watch, and at last on the third 
night after my speech with him, I did that 
which I would have been truly ashamed to 
confess to the Laird, which was to follow him 
in secret, a thing that I was loath to do, it not 
being wholesome to my stomach to play the 
spy. 

On this day, the Laird had been about as 
usual, and late in the afternoon I saw him 
leave the house and stroll down the highroad. 
I saw him turn from the road and walk along 
the hollow upward toward the glen, and when 
he had gotten thus far and was beginning to 


WANDERING IN THE GLEN. 91 

be lost at times among the trees, I slipped out 
at the back of the house, and made across the 
fields at an angle that would bring me out, I 
thought, well up the glen, and in time to in- 
tercept my Laird, if he wandered that far. 

When I had gotten into the glen, I sat 
down hidden behind a fallen tree, and looked 
down through the rocky chasm, and there 
was my Laird toiling up toward me on the 
opposite bank. 

I got up from my concealment and 
began again to ascend the glen, which 
grew wilder and more fearsome in its 
solitude as I climbed higher. Far away 
among the ruins of Nature’s conflict I could 
see at last the figure of the Laird, his form 
coming in sight for a moment of time, and 
lost again for longer space. 

What brought him here was the question 
on my mind, and like a riddle I was repeating 
it, searching for an answer, but the more I 
puzzled over it, the more unaccountable it all 
was, and the more there was growing upon 
me the awful conviction that around us all 
there was some unholy mystery hovering, 
and that not only my master’s reason was 
enthralled with some strange spell, but that 
my own spirit was feeling the influence of un- 


92 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


natural and awesome surroundings. While 
there was a great din and confused rumble of 
sounds about me, yet I was somehow only 
conscious of a silence deep and overwhelming, 
and when a stick broke under my foot with a 
snap, or a stone loosened from the path fell 
rattling from a ledge, the sound gave me a 
shock like that of terror; so solitary and 
deadly lone was the place. 

I was crouching near St. Cuthbert’s Cairn, 
which I could see dimly rearing its vine- 
grown pile of stones to the stature of a man. 
Under this monument, long years since, the 
bones of St. Cuthbert, borne by his pious 
brethren in cloak and cowl, had been buried, 
and there the waters below had sung ever 
since a wild requiem for his souFs repose. 

The place of the Cairn was ever a grewsome 
one, and now in the shadows of approaching 
night, stealing out from bush and tree, and 
lurking behind the deep, tangled clumps of 
forest growth, it seemed a throne where so- 
lemnity might sit brooding undisturbed for 
eternal years. I could see the Laird, who 
had come out upon a piece of shelving rock, 
and was standing looking down into the 
gorge as though musing. Ah, but it was 
strange to see him there. There in solitude. 


Wandering in the glen, 93 

enshrouded in this deep, lonely glade, amid 
the gurgle of falling waters, and the roar and 
tumble of the torrents, was my master, his 
soul troubled with wild emotions, wandered 
from his own fireside, to stand there filled with 
such strange thoughts and mad fancies as 
God only knew, and which I could but 
imagine were neither human or wholesome. 

It was growing darker now, and as the 
shadows grew thicker, my Laird’s form was 
dim and uncertain against the black back- 
ground of the wild growth behind him, but I 
saw him turn toward the head of the glen 
again and come on. Soon I lost him entirely 
for a time, but when I next caught sight of 
his moving figure, he was almost opposite to 
me, so that I might have called to him, but 
in the roar of the water I could not have been 
heard by him, for indeed no sound of human 
voice could have been heard there, and 
though I listened with an overstrained sense, 
I could not hear his step, nor the rattling of 
the loose stones which I knew his feet set 
a-rolling. Not three rods from me did he 
pass on the opposite side of the glen. I could 
see his features dimly, and there was, I 
thought, nothing uncommon in them. He 
seemed as one in deep thought, and yet as one 


94 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGN. 


alive to his surroundings and listening to the 
sounds about him. 

Upward he went, and I saw him pass the 
Cairn, and stand a moment on a ledge of rock. 
I saw him pause there with his face toward 
me, and then down he sat on the edge of the 
rock and leaned his head on his hands. 

For a long space, it seemed to me, I saw him 
sit, never moving or changing his position, as 
though charmed with the spell of this dread 
sanctuary of solitude, removed from men and 
\ men's ways, a fit spot for spirits to dwell. 
Here amid the strange voices of nature, whis- 
pering and moaning, he sat alone, and so he 
was still sitting when the darkness of night 
came down, as it were, all in a moment upon 
the glen, black and impenetrable, burying 
him and all other things in the thick murk of 
midnight. 

My mind had been in no state of comfort 
before, and now it was fast bringing me to the 
verge of terror, for as I looked about me, try- 
ing to penetrate the darkness which had 
grown thick and unfathomable, I found my 
imagination actively conjuring up uncanny 
things that were not like to be comforting to 
me, as I can truly avouch. It was not long 
before strange shapes were beginning to loom 


WANDERING IN THE GLEN, 


95 


before me, and at length the whole eerie soli- 
tude became phantom-haunted. I could 
have sworn that I saw a great figure of a man 
rise out of the chasm dressed in a monkish 
garb of cloak and cowl, and come toward me 
as I crouched in fear, and more than once I 
thought I saw a grisly wraith flit by so close 
to me that I felt a rush of air and the touch of 
its fluttering shroud. All about me the place 
seemed haunted with forms and voices, as if I 
had wandered into the land of spirits, so that 
down deep in my soul I was in such a state of 
dismay and awful terror that I was seized 
with a great trembling, the sweat starting 
on my forehead and trickling cold on my 
face. 

I could restrain my pent-up feelings no 
longer, and just lifted up my voice and called 
to the Laird, and though I called loudly, the 
sound of my voice was as naught in that be- 
wildering solitude, and it seemed to me as if 
it never left my lips but was smothered within 
me. I called again and again, appalled with 
the sound of my own voice, and listened with 
my ears strained to catch a response. As I 
listened, I thought my cries were at times an- 
swered by unearthly and eldrich voices that 
came out of the blackness about me, whisper- 


96 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

ing close to my ear, and calling out of the 
distance far up and down the glen. 

I was filled with dread unspeakable now, 
and in such a state of mind that I was fain to 
bethink myself of but one thing, and that was 
to flee from the horrors of this place, and 
cease crying where crying was vain, so I be- 
gan to grope my way with many pains, and 
many an ugly bruise, out from the spot where 
I had crouched, creeping upon my hands and 
knees much of the time, and stretching my 
arms before me to guide and protect me. 

Gradually and with great labor and horrid 
fears, I got so far to the right of the glen 
and its dense growth that I could see at times 
above me a bit of sky and a star blinking 
faintly in the zenith. When I had come out 
where the fields lay and the path was fairly 
clear, I had little difficulty in my progress, 
though the memory of the things I had felt 
was still strong upon me, and the road before 
me lonely enough. 

I had reached that place where there was a 
foot-path which I well knew led through the 
fields toward the highroad, and where at a dis- 
tance of two hundred yards I knew old Tibbie’s 
hut to be, when I heard the crackling of twigs. 
I stopped to listen, when I made out distinctly 


WANDERING IN THE GLEN. 


97 


a footstep on the path before me. It was a 
slow, shuffling step, and drawing near me. 
With my heart starting anew to beating, I fell 
back into the shadow of a bush about ten feet 
from the path, and getting down on my knees 
bent forward and watched. 

Dimly at last I saw a blacker shadow in the 
dark, and it seemed gigantic as I strained my 
eyes toward it. Closer it came, and clearer I 
saw it. It seemed to shrink to the stature of 
a human creature now, and when it was oppo- 
site to me, it seemed yet less in size. As it 
passed me slowly, I knew the figure, bent and 
double and wrapped in its long cloak, to be 
no other than old Tibbie, wandering in the 
night on what errand I knew not. I watched 
her as she vanished in the dark, with her 
back to her own cot, and going toward Glen- 
haugh. When she passed me, I still stood 
where I was until I could hear no more the 
sound of her feet in the stillness. 

When I arose from my hiding place and had 
come opposite to Tibbie^s cot, I saw a light 
flickering sharply in the window. I thought 
it strange that Tibbie’s hearth should glow 
and Tibbie traveling from it, and a strange 
desire came upon me to take a peep in at Tib- 
bie’s hearth, deserted and lonely, with the 


98 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

fagots burning and warming the house for her 
return. 

When I stepped aside from the path toward 
the light I confess I felt ill at ease, being not 
only filled with fancies uncanny, but having a 
sense of doing a stealthy thing, reproachful to 
my self-respect. I had half a mind to turn 
back as I came, so timorous and reproachful 
were my feelings, but I resolved at last to take 
one glance through the little end window at 
least and be off again. 

Creeping quietly around the darkest side of 
the house, I stole up under the deep-set little 
window where the light was streaming, and 
standing upon the tip of my toes I looked in, 
and there I saw a thing that struck terror 
into me, so that I waited not a minute, but 
turned and fled as if the devil pursued me, for 
there before my eyes I saw the fagots burning 
and old Tibbie herself sitting, bent double, at 
the fireside. 

As I fled with my flesh creeping and a cold 
perspiration upon me, I was completely under 
the power of an awful influence that drove 
rational thought from my mind, for the grew- 
some spectacle of Tibbie's double had all but 
upset my reason. As for my master, it was 
little thought I had given to him from the 



THERE I SAW A THING THAT STRUCK TERROR INTO ME. 





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WANDERING IN THE GLEN. 


lOI 


moment I set out in my flight from the glen, 
and not until the lights of Glenhaugh blinked 
before me did my mind return to him, and as 
it did I confess I found myself unpleasantly 
associating him not only with the fearful 
phantoms there but with the uncanny figure 
sitting at Tibbie’s hearth, in the form and 
semblance of the absent old woman whom my 
eyes had seen wandering in the night. 


CHAPTER XL 


SIR GILBERT LAUNSTON. 

It was in the servants’ hall that I took 
refuge after my flight from the glen, and after 
the grewsome experience I had just passed, 
the homely and comfortable atmosphere of 
the hall, with its clatter of dishes and gossip 
of the fireside, was soothing and pleasant be- 
yond words. 

As I lingered there for a brief space, 
I overheard three or four of our serving 
women speaking among themselves of the 
late advent in our neighborhood of Sir Gilbert 
Launston, one of the gentry in our part of the 
country. Little heed I paid to the gossip, 
but indeed it was this same Sir Gilbert Launs- 
ton whose coming among us was to develop 
with vital significance the strange story of my 
Laird, and who was now to direct my mind 
happily from the late horrors of my experi- 
ence, and restrain me from further active in- 
vestigation of my Laird’s wandering and Tib- 
bie’s supernatural powers. 


103 


SIR GILBERT LAUNSTON, 103 

This Sir Gilbert Launston was, for all his 
title, his lace, and his fine manners, just the 
most impudent dog, I thought, in all the 
King’s realm, and yet he was not without a 
clever wit, and his tongue was never thick, 
but always ready with a sally to tickle the 
fancy. He had no end of tales at the tip of 
his tongue, and was never at a loss to fill in a 
gap, and when the demand on his powers of 
converse was not in force, he just tossed his 
head in the air, and whistled a scrap of a sen- 
timental tune, or it might be a bawdy song, 
or lightly trilled a line or couplet from some 
merry ditty. 

I think my Laird paid little heed to him, 
and gave him no more especial consideration 
than if he were one of the regular people of 
the house, and indeed he was a kind of con- 
nection of the Laird’s, of remote condition, 
and it was on that that he made bold to quar- 
ter himself at Glenhaugh of late, biding with 
us for days, and he might have dwelt there 
forever for all the objection the Laird would 
have offered. He had been a stranger to 
Glenhaugh for long years, and had never seen 
my Lady or had other knowledge of her than 
that which he picked up in the gossip of the 
neighborhood, and now that he was back at 


104 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


Glenhaugh he had learned my master's story, 
but indeed not from me, for I was determined 
to tell him nothing. 

Ah, Gillicuddy," he would say to me, and 
perhaps it was a slap on the back, or a poke 
in the ribs he would accompany his words 
with, it's a dull place this old house of 
Glenhaugh. I wonder a man of your spirit 
can abide to stay in it. You can but live the 
life of a snail here. I wonder you do not 
pack up your kist and cross the Channel, 
where there is no dry rot as there is here. 
Why, man, you are just perishing here for the 
want of the good things of life. Come, Gilli- 
cuddy, just off with me to Paris, and I’ll show 
you a life that will set the blood in your veins 
to tingling." I was like to answer him in 
some such fashion as would make him red in 
the face with laughing, saying: “ I wadna 
say. Sir Gilbert, but yer frien's in Paris will 
be thinking lang o' yer absence. I'm just 
fine where I am, but they'll be pining for 
ye sairly." 

“ Gillicuddy," he said to me one day, ‘‘ I 
wonder such a douce and sober man as you 
does not take a wife? " 

Faith," said I, “ I hae often wondered at 
that mysel'." 


SI/^ GILBERT LAUNSTON, 105 

Mayhap,” said he, “it’s not such a wonder 
among the lasses,” and I saw a twinkle in his 
eye, for he would poke a bit fun at me. 

“ ’Deed no,” I answered, “ for it’s no’ the 
likes o’ me that’s wanted, it’s mair like to be 
some flatterer they’ll seek. I hear. Sir Gil- 
bert, ye hae had mony a chance offered ye 
yersel’.” 

“ And you have heard aright,” he said, 
“ but by St. Louis, there be three things that 
I must get bound together in the woman I 
would consider for wiving.” 

“ And what may they be? ” I asked. 

“ Well, Gillicuddy, first I demand virtue 
in her, next I must have wisdom, and last 
and best of all, I must have wealth with 
her.” 

“ r faith. Sir Gilbert, yer hard to please, 
and ye ask much, but if I micht nae be con- 
sidered ower blunt. I’d just like to ask ye, 
what hae ye yersel’ to gie in exchange for a’ 
these? Ye maun hae something to gie that 
I hae no’ been able to find in ye, for I’m sure 
the things ye ask, ye dinna possess yersel’, 
neither virtue, wisdom, nor wealth.” 

I thought he winced under my words, as 
well he might, but his impudence was equal 
to any emergency, and he laughed with more 


io6 KENNEDY OE GLENHAUGH. 

mirth than there was any warrant for, and was 
just red in the face like to burst: 

“ By the King’s caul, ye’re keen, Gilli- 
cuddy, you have a tongue like a knife, and 
you are not given to flattery, I swear. I fear 
you would not do so well at the court; but, 
man, you just owe me a bottle for speaking 
so ill of me, so up with it and drink my health, 
an you would get my forgiveness.” 

Sir Gilbert with that glib tongue of his 
could not be satisfied, but must ever gab upon 
any matter that came to his mind, and so, it 
had come to me that Sir Gilbert and the Laird 
had had speech more than once upon the his- 
tory of my Lady’s disappearance. I could 
not see that the effect on the Laird was out- 
wardly perceptible, but yet I was such a close 
student of the Laird’s ways, and so keenly in 
sympathy with all that effected his welfare, 
that I had discovered a change in him, a 
change that I thought was not for the best. 
What I saw dimly but positively was a touch 
of nervous excitement, and a kind of impa- 
tience of manner new to him, as if the memory 
of the past had been reawakened in him, and 
was giving him pain. I blamed Sir Gilbert 
for this, and I felt that it would have been a 
special providence had he stayed in Paris and 


S/J^ GILBERT LAUNSTOH. 


107 


not come to Glenhaugh to open a secret 
matter that might have been well left undis- 
turbed, and so I planned to have converse 
with him, and to give him a bit of my mind 
that would silence his meddling. 

I had a good opportunity on the evening of 
the second day after I had followed my mas- 
ter to the glen, for the Laird was off again at 
his wandering. Sir Gilbert was walking in 
the upper hall, and humming to himself as I 
came down from my room, and when he saw 
me he made a grand salute, and said: 

By the crook of St. Agnes, Gillicuddy, 
you come to me like a stream of sunlight to a 
prisoner in a dungeon. Fm fairly given up 
to the spirit of what the French call ennui y and 
if I cannot get the companionship of man in 
this bleak hole of Glenhaugh, but must be left 
to my own lonely reveries, Fll just perish with 
the dreariness of life. Come man, up with a 
bottle of the best, and let the twain of us while 
an hour away with the exchange of our wit, 
for before God, Gillicuddy, if it were not for 
the sparkle of your genius here, I could find 
it in my mood to pack and leave without cere- 
mony. The Laird's just a dead man, and 
there's no more spirit or spice in him than in 
a stewed prune," 


lo8 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

I thought there was a good opening here 
for the converse I sought, so I gave orders to 
have the bottles up, and down we sat to- 
gether. It was a sight to see my gentleman 
with a bottle before him. I think at such a 
time he was a man risen far beyond the cares 
of earth, and set upon a throne with every ill 
beneath him, snapping his fingers at every 
trouble, and ready to fling a challenge at 
death itself. With his haughty bearing he 
would stretch forth his arm with a swing, and 
pour the wine from a bottle with the most 
abandoned and free action, perhaps singing as 
he did it, in a not unmusical key, a light 
snatch of some lilting melody, smiling all the 
time as if in some devil-may-care rapture, and 
when he had drunk off his glass with the easy 
manner of a connoisseur, he would smack his 
lips, and sit back in his chair, satisfied with 
himself, and superior to everything else in the 
universe. 

This was his manner as we sat down to- 
gether, and the first words he said after drain- 
ing his glass were: “And now, Gillicuddy, to 
hell with care and the philosophy of life. 
The inspiration of existence dwells in the 
juice of the grape, and the sublime and beau- 
tiful are just squeezed through the wine-press, 


S/J^ GILBERT LAUNSTOn, 109 

and corked up in a flagon to be drawn at 
man's will and convenience." 

Said I, “ And that's a very pretty conceit, 
but I think it is but a silly one, for I fear 
there's mair than inspiration in the grape. I 
hae seen murder, and misery, and death in it, 
and as for the sublime and beautiful, that is 
naught but the drunken dream o' them that 
awake wi' brains befuddled and the horrors o’ 
remorse at their ain foolishness, and as for 
sending care to the deevil, it's mair easy to 
say than to do. Think ye my master's cares 
could be so easily dismissed ? ” 

“ The master is just daft,” said he, “ and 
not to be counted among men.” 

“ And how mak’ ye that oot? ” I asked, re- 
senting his easy and contemptuous assertion. 
“ The Laird is just as fair and sane a man as 
ere managed an estate and opened his hand 
wi' hospitality to a’ who cam' under his roof.” 

He never paid heed to me, more than to 
laugh so loud that I thought he would do 
himself a harm. Then he made another 
sweep of his arm and poured out another 
glass. 

‘‘ Gillicuddy,” said he, “ you are just a man 
among a thousand and worth more to the 
Laird than a vintage, and it's little care that 


no 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


may come to the Laird with Gillicuddy by 
his side; but for all that, the Laird is not a 
sane man. You have done your best, but the 
bogles of daftness have gotten in at him for 
all your watchfulness.’^ 

Now was my time to say what I had wanted 
to say, so I began : “ Sir Gilbert, I am a plain 
man, and I hae a great love and loyalty to my 
master. I hae nae mind to give ony man 
offense, least o’ a’ ane who is under this roof 
and enjoying the hospitality o’ the Laird’s 
fireside, but I hae it in my mind to tell ye that 
ye are no’ helping the Laird oot o’ his 
troubles when ye talk to him o’ his wife, and 
question him on the particulars o’ her loss; a 
thing that ye were warned no’ to do, and 
which it were best no’ to continue doing if ye 
hae his welfare and peace o’ mind at heart.” 

He listened to me with great patience I 
must affirm, and I confess I had a thought to 
see him fly into a passion. He said nothing 
in answer for a few moments, but just leaned 
back in his chair and seemed to be studying 
me in a pleasant way. 

I was beginning to feel uneasy at this piece 
of play-acting, for it was like a bit of his im- 
pudence to stare at me in that situation to my 
woeful embarrassment, and I was just letting 




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SIR GILBERT LA UN S TOM. Ii3 

my discomfiture give place to indignation at 
what I thought was his accursed insolence, 
when he leaned forward and putting his hand 
on my shoulder said, with more seriousness 
in his tone and manner than he had ever 
shown : 

“ Gillicuddy, do you think you can keep a 
secret? 

“ What mean ye? said I, and I confess I 
was astonished at his words and manner. 

Can you keep a secret? he asked again. 
“ A secret in the interests of your master.'’ 

“ Aye, that I can,” I answered. In the 
name o’ God what hae ye to tell ? ” 

I have a long story to tell,” he said, and 
if you’ll just bar the door and fortify your 
stomach with another dram, I’ll make a be- 
ginning at once.” 


CHAPTER XII. 


‘"iVe a long story for you.” 

‘‘ I’ve a long story for you, Gillicuddy,” said 
Sir Gilbert, when I had set myself to listen, 
and poured out a glass for myself. ‘‘ Aye, 
Gillicuddy, a long story, and one that will 
make your eyes open wide with the wonder of 
it, and if I be not mistaken your ear will not 
tire till you hear the end of it, but, by Heaven, 
I must again have your promise, on your 
honor, that no word of mine shall have repe- 
tition from your lips.” 

I told him when he had gotten thus far that 
I was not an auld wife to sit by the fire and 
gossip of my master, and as I was never fond 
of long prefaces, I was ready to listen to what 
he had to tell without more palaver. 

‘‘Damn me! Gillicuddy,” he cried, “you 
have a delicate way of putting forward your 
thought, but I will not gainsay that you are 
wise about the preface, so I’ll cut that short as 
far as may be, and into the story sans palaver; 


11* 


rVE A LONG STORY FOR YOU.*' 115 

but, mind me, there will be need of some bit 
of rhetorical preface ere you can be prepared 
to understand my story, and so, Gillicuddy, as 
you are a man of some erudition, with your 
leave a bit of history, as I may call it, will not 
be amiss.” 

When he had come to this point, he filled 
his glass with that grand cavalier manner of 
his, and taking a sip began : 

“ If that flabby lump of humanity, Louis 
Capet, had not been so busy tinkering at the 
locksmith’s trade, but had been more after the 
fashion of his ancestor, Louis XV., he that 
was at last overmastered by Mme. Dubarry 
and the smallpox, you and I, Gillicuddy, 
would hardly have been sitting here together 
telling stories; and you may think o’er that, 
my man, at your leisure, and if the gomeril 
Louis had not convened the Assembly of 
Notables in eighty-seven, and made a high- 
road for the States General with its damned 
Third Estate to march on to Versailles in 
eighty-nine, there would have been no story 
to tell; for, by the pit of hell, the things I am 
about to tell were brought to my knowledge 
mainly out of this same historical-political 
hotch-potch of French kingcraft and court 
folly; and that’s a bit of preface for you, Gilli- 


Ii6 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

cuddy, whether you have the wit of a politician 
to understand it or not. 

You will understand, Gillicuddy, that 
France had been for a long time like a bank- 
rupt with little credit. There was no revenue 
to be gotten from any source to maintain the 
Government in its luxury, for every stream 
had been pumped dry, and what with taxes 
and tithes squeezed from the common people 
to support a wheen of my friends of the court 
and the clergy, in an extravagance of living 
that was past belief, there was little wonder 
that the whole nation of wage-earners had be- 
come a multitude of impoverished and hun- 
gry men and women. 

‘‘ While I lived high myself, I was not blind 
to the misery that was about me, and i’ faith 
I was beginning to have a touch of prophetic 
inspiration like that of Jeremiah, and ready to 
foretell a bit of trouble and calamity; for the 
signs of the times were filled with significance. 

You see, Gillicuddy, at this time, aye and 
for a long time before this, everything in 
France was ripe for some terrible reaction, for 
it was lavish greed and grandeur among the 
few, and among the many it was just misery 
of existence with little more than scant loaves 
of black bread, aye and millions of famishing 


“/’ra A LONG STORY FOR YOUT H? 

creatures glad to get grass and the bark of 
trees for sustenance. 

“ By God, Gillicuddy, you may believe me 
the people were just gotten to be like 
hunted animals, ready to turn at bay, and 
it was to this state of things had France 
come, with the simpleton Louis at his 
wits’ end, and at last the Paris rabble batter- 
ing at the Bastile, having got encouragement 
by the convening of its friends of the Third 
Estate at Versailles. 

I had spent a long stretch of time in Paris 
before the French Exchequer had been 
emptied, and indeed while I feared more 
national calamity, yet I had little serious 
thought of danger ahead for myself or friends 
till that woeful 14th of July came of which you 
know full well, Gillicuddy, and the Bastile was 
leveled by the excited populace of Paris with 
Santerre and Maillard at the head of it. That 
was a signal for some of my friends of the 
court to pack their kists, with small cere- 
mony, and seek a climate more agreeable; but 
though I could see there was trouble brewing 
for the gentry, and like to be a bit more of 
fury, I just bided quietly in the background, 
as one may say, and waited for the storm to 
blow over; but damn me, Gillicuddy, the 


Il8 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH, 

devil’s blood was up, and there began a bonny 
dance. 

“ What with pock-marked Mirabeau har- 
anguing at the Assembly, and the Aus- 
trian Guards and the black cockade matter, 
there got a lively jig going among all men, 
and it was not a Maypole that was put up, but 
a pike with the head of old Foulon, a State 
Minister, streaming with blood, and a wisp of 
straw stuffed into the gab of him, and all 
Paris, aye and all France to its very borders, 
lilting an anthem of ill omen. 

‘‘ It was through all of this devil’s time I 
was in Paris, Gillicuddy, after scores of my 
friends had gotten over the frontier, thinking 
it safer to be at a distance. As for myself, not 
being a Frenchman born, I thought I might 
hang on a while longer, and watch the turn 
affairs were taking, but indeed, if I had 
dreamed of the wild rascality of the city, and 
the ill temper of the rabble, you’d have seen 
me at Glenhaugh a bit earlier in the day. 

With excitement and anxiety, and a kind 
of merry cruelty possessing all men, each day 
brought forth some newly invented and dia- 
bolical antic, and what with bells ringing and 
fires burning, and mobs of tattered and starv- 
ing wretches tramping ceaselessly in the 


'•I'V£ A LONG STORY FOR YOUT 119 

streets, with drums beating and carrying 
staves and torches, the most hellish carnival 
was kept up that man had e’er seen. 

But as you care not for a long preface. I’ll 
just say no more than this, that Paris was in a 
terrible state of disturbance with the National 
Assembly sitting at Versailles, trying to regen- 
erate France and the King in a swither won- 
dering at it all, when the first incident of my 
story pushed itself forward, and it came about 
in this way: 

I was dining one evening in a cafe in the 
Rue St. Honore, when who should I meet 
but a man that I had known ten years before, 
and who had been dead and buried for the 
past nine years, if the testimony of eye- 
witnesses and grave-diggers was to be be- 
lieved. I had read his funeral notice in print, 
and had heard a Mass at Notre Dame said 
solemnly for the repose of his soul, and if I 
had given him a thought since then it was to 
fancy him dwelling in purgatorial realms with 
little chance of prayer ever getting him into 
the company of saints. 

Before Heaven, Gillicuddy, you may be- 
lieve me I got a shock when I saw my dead 
and buried friend just risen superior to all the 
grave-del vers and the death-services of the 


120 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


church, and sitting before me and sipping 
wine, and making a hearty meal from the 
flesh-pots of life. 

'' Now the name of the worthy before me 
was Courtray, or, to be more precise, it was 
Jean Lazarus de Courtray, a name borne by 
a good French family, and indeed as to one 
part of it, a most fitting name for my old 
friend; for if I have not forgotten the Scrip- 
ture of my youth, Gillicuddy, it was a certain 
person of that very name that came forth 
from the grave lang syne. 

'' This same Courtray sitting before me had 
been a gay chiel in his younger days, and 
run through a grand estate left him by his 
family, so that when I lost sight of him, ten 
years before, he was at the end of his fortune, 
and just a beggar plunged in debt, with noth- 
ing but a good family name and a bad char- 
acter. 

I remember to have heard a story of his 
infamous conduct toward a young woman, 
the only daughter of a Scotch gentleman, 
resident in France, who had staked his gear 
on the Jacobite Pretender, him they named 
Bonny Charlie, and fled his country with a 
meager purse after the fell disaster of Cullo- 
den Field. It seems the young woman, being 


A LONG STORY FOR YOU." 12 1 


little more than a child in years, he had be- 
guiled from the convent where she was being 
reared and schooled, and after a clandestine 
marriage, followed by a short period of the 
most cruel and shameless treatment, had wan- 
tonly deserted her, and left her tO' the mercy 
of the world. She had sought her father 
then, but in place of getting comfort and shel- 
ter from him, he had turned her adrift with a 
curse, refusing to take her in or give her any 
countenance whatever, driving her off an out- 
cast, disgraced and disowned. Upon this, 
for so rumor had it, having no friend to turn 
to, she had sought Courtray again, but he had 
laughed like a devil at her, and refused tO' give 
her recognition as a wife, even denying his 
marriage to her. 

“ What became of her thereafter no man 
seemed to know positively, but gossip had 
it that she had sworn, in the bitterness 
of her spirit, to part with her name and 
hide her identity, and to begin life anew 
among strangers in another country. These 
were but rumors, Gillicuddy, and vague they 
were, I will confess, but I had some of them 
at the time from such authority as led me to 
think them essentially true. As to her 
father, and this is no rumor, for I had it from 


122 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


a witness of repute, he died shortly after his 
daughter’s appeal to him, and went tO' the 
grave with the absolution of the Church, and 
cursing his only child for deceiving him. 
There was little reason to doubt all the evil 
tales I heard of Courtray, for before heaven 
he was just a man lost in the sea of worldly 
dissipation, and drifted on to the rocks of 
ruin and disgrace. 

I need not dwell on these particulars, Gil- 
licuddy, but may simply say, to round out my 
story, that, from one disgraceful thing to an- 
other, my young gentleman found himself 
accused of a felony in his efforts to eke out his 
high living, and when the officers of justice 
were asking for him, he took leg-bail and left 
the country without shaking hands with them. 

‘‘ Well, Gillicuddy, wherever he was, rumor 
had it that he had crossed the sea, and made 
his way into the American wilds as far as 
Canada, and found a company of French fur- 
traders and adventurers near the waters of 
Lake Huron. It was a year after that, when 
this rumor was verified, for there came a lad 
among us fresh from America, who had been 
among these same fur-hunters, and he told a 
dreadful tale of Indian massacre, and that 
with his own eyes he had seen Courtray shot 


“/'T^ A LONG STORY FOR YOUT 123 

down in the wilderness at the hands of 
savages, and seen him lying dead among a 
score of others. Aye, Gillicuddy, and more 
than that, this same traveler brought back 
the papers of Courtray which he had taken 
from his pocket when he lay dead. 

‘‘ I think the news brought mourning to his 
creditors, if it did not to others, but as for his 
family they just gave him a decent burial, 
that is, they buried him in spirit, and in the 
Church of Notre Dame incense was burned 
and candles were lighted, and a priest in long 
robes said a solemn Mass for the repose of 
his soul. 

“ As for the young wife, I never heard tell 
of her after, and she might as well have been 
dead and buried, for oblivion swallowed her, 
and she never came out of it. 

“ It was no wonder, Gillicuddy, that I got 
a start of surprise when I saw before me my 
friend Lazarus, and I could scarce believe my 
eyes when I saw a man dead for nine years, 
just back to his earthly provender with an 
appetite that seemed to be keen from a long 
fast. 

“ I watched my gentleman through the 
corner of my eye for some time, and I saw 
plain enough that he was a bit ill at ease over 


124 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


something, for he had an eye that wandered 
with suspicion, as if looking about for sur- 
prises, I thought. He was not dressed as a 
gentleman of quality, but showed plainly 
enough that his sojourn in another world had 
not been a prosperous one, for his finery was 
a bit threadbare and tawdry. 

“ I confess, Gillicuddy, I felt a bit sorry for 
the man; not that he was back to life again, but 
that he was back looking as though the expense 
of his own funeral would have been a fortune 
in his hands. I was sorely at a loss whether to 
speak to him or not, for it was an uncanny 
thing, I thought, to break in upon the quiet 
of a man who had been a ghost for so long a 
time, but when I saw him feeding so naturally 
on the diet of the living, I considered the con- 
verse of the living might not be amiss, so across 
the room I strode, and coming up behind him 
just slapped him on the back and said: 

‘ Well, Courtray, I see you’re back again. 
Could not you and the devil agree, or are you 
here to visit the pale glimpses of the moon 
on a short parole only ? ’ Gillicuddy, you 
should have seen the man start and turn pale. 
I thought he was about to turn to a ghost 
again and vanish before me. He looked up 
to me, and said in a whisper ‘ Launston, is 


A LONG STORY FOR YOUT 125 

it you? Mon Dieiiy speak low, Fm not to be 
known/ 

“ ‘ Then you’re not dead ? ’ said 1. 

‘ Fve some life in me yet,’ said he; ‘but 
speak low, man; and mind, Courtray is dead 
for the present, and I am Picot — M. Picot.’ 

“ He was mortally disturbed, I could see, but 
he was still the clever devil he used to be, and 
he gave me his new title with such a droll 
twinkle in his eye that I burst out laughing, 
and called for a bottle. 

“ ‘ Fm happy to make your acquaintance, 
M. Picot,’ said I, ‘ and we’ll just sit and talk 
over the past, and revive the memory of our 
dead and buried old friend Jean Lazarus de 
Courtray.’ 

“ And so, Gillicuddy, there we sat and talked 
long together, and there were some things in 
our talk will be of interest for you to hear, 
though I can plainly see you are beginning to 
fidget, thinking perhaps that all I have said is 
but an idle story; but wait, Gillicuddy, I am 
getting to the point, and if I mistake not, 
you’ll be opening your eyes and gasping for 
more ere I have done with my story; so take 
another dram, my man, and settle yourself to 
hear another chapter.” 


CHAPTER XIII. 

“you^re a fine, merry devil, courtray.^^ 

‘‘ After we had emptied a bottle, Courtray 
would have me off to his lodgings, the safer 
to lay before me the story of his travels, so 
together there we sat over the wine, and it 
was late before we separated. 

“ The first words, Gillicuddy, that Citizen 
Picot, or Courtray, said to me were in explana- 
tion of his resurrection from the dead, so to 
speak. It seems that while he had been felled 
by the savages in North America, and left for 
dead, his scalp had been left to him, fortunately 
enough, by the painted heathens, who had not 
the time to take a lock of his hair for remem- 
brance, in the hurry of business. Coming to 
his senses, such as they were, he found that, 
strangely enough, his portemonnaie, contain- 
ing a flask of whisky and all of his private 
papers, had been taken from him. He sorely 
missed the flask, being nearly dead, but man- 
aged by great effort to crawl out of immediate 
danger without it, leaving the rest of his com- 


''YOU 'RE A El ME, MERE Y DE VIL. ” 127 

panions, a score or more of them, lying butch- 
ered. 

‘‘ The next morning after the ambush, it 
was his good fortune to fall in with a party of 
English trappers, and by them he was picked 
up and cared for, being carried by them with 
much difficulty farther toward the West, to 
the headwaters or tributaries of the Mississ- 
ippi, and from there, after some weeks, was 
floated down the river on a flatboat to the 
Gulf of Mexico. 

“ The papers like to prove his identity 
and left with the spirit flask were the same 
that had been picked up and brought to 
France, and indeed he who had brought them 
told but the truth when he swore to seeing 
the owner of them lying dead beside them; 
for it was he who found Courtray, and had 
hastily gathered up what he thought a dead 
man would have no use for. 

But I need not make a long story of this, 
Gillicuddy, so I will just say that my gentleman 
wandered about the face of the earth, mainly 
in and about the Spanish Main, being a negro- 
trader at one time in the West India planta- 
tions at Jamaica, and at another time a specula- 
tor at Guiana. Indeed, Gillicuddy, I have small 
doubt that piracy was one of his trades as well, 


128 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


for he was none too good to refuse service in 
any mission the devil might proffer. It was 
little he cared whether his family in France 
thought him dead or not, and in truth it was 
not till he got back to France, after a ten- 
years’ absence, that he heard of his own death 
and funeral. 

'' He had come back to France about the 
time that the French gentry were getting 
over the frontier, and he found but a cold 
hearth, and small prospect of ever seeing 
fortune smile in that quarter again. He was 
now a gentleman at a disadvantage, as I may 
say, and not like to think ill of a friend who 
might come forward with a small loan. 

‘‘You see, Gillicuddy, my gentleman could 
get no profit among the aristocracy, for ’deed 
there was little of that breed left in France, and 
his pocket was far too shallow to keep up ap- 
pearances, so he was just in love with the com- 
mon people, and lived among them as Citizen 
Picot after the new style, denouncing the 
King and the Nobles, and clavering about 
‘ Liberty,’ ‘ Equality,’ and ‘ Fraternity,’ as 
if he were Marat himself, or that Prince of 
Mountebanks, Philippe d’Orleans. So here 
he was born again to a new life among the 
canaille, with the old life of high station left 


“ YOU* RE A FINE, MERRY DEVlir 129 

behind with all its debts unpaid, and I must 
confess, Gillicuddy, that I was myself much in 
the same fashion at the time, for it had be- 
come in Paris an unwholesome thing to be 
counted one of the quality, and indeed, if it 
had not been for the political obligation of 
the times, and a low ebb of my own financial 
streams, I would hardly have been dining my- 
self in the Rue St. Honore that day. 

After I had heard the long story he had 
to tell of his adventures, and we had emptied 
several bottles of cheap wine, I asked him a 
question which had been in my mind more 
than once that night. ‘ The young lass you 
took from the convent,' said I, ‘ she that was 
called your wife, have you heard aught of 
her? ' 

‘‘ ' That I have,' said he, ' and the best news 
that I have heard for this many a day. Mon 
DieUy if it were not for the news I've heard of 
her. I'd not be sitting here so contented with- 
out a Louis d’Or in my purse. Mon Dieu, 
that wife of mine comes like an angel to me 
in my distresses. Comes like an angel de 
finance, holding out both palms to me filled 
with fair English pounds sterling. She's a 
mine of wealth, I hear, and I look to delve 
where the vein is rich. What think you, 


130 KENNEDY OE GLENHAVGH. 

Launston, of my little Scotch-French wife just 
throwing off her widow’s weeds and catching 
a Scotchman with a fine estate for me ? ’ 

“ ‘ And is that the plot of the play? ’ said 1. 

‘‘ ‘ It’s the first act, if you like,’ said he, 

‘ avant-propos, or you may call it the pro- 
logue.’ 

‘ And what will be the end of the play? ’ I 
asked. 

“ He shrugged his shoulders and lifted his 
eyebrows, as the French have a habit of 
doing, and said: 

“ ‘ The end of it will be, M. Picot with a lien 
on a Scotch estate, and madame the banker, 
paying Picot’s debts.’ 

“ ‘ Before God,’ said I, ' you’re a fine, 
merry devil, Courtray, or Citizen Picot, or 
Beelzebub, if you will, but do you mean to 
tell me that she who was Mme. Courtray is 
married again, and to a Scotchman with an 
estate ? ’ 

‘‘ ‘ That’s what I mean,’ said he, ‘ married 
to a countryman of yours, and a Laird, as 
they call him in your country.’ 

“ ‘ It’s a score of Lairds I know in my coun- 
try, Courtray,’ said I, ‘ and little but the 
name have they. Small wealth the most of 
them can boast. I have in mind the story of 


YOU'RE A FINE, MERRY DEVILS 13 1 

a pirate that plundered seven Scotch islands, 
and got three shillings and sixpence out of his 
adventure. I’m thinking the end of your 
play may not be so musical with the jingle of 
gold as you think, but who may the Laird be? 
Give him a name.’ 

“ He shook his head and looked at me with 
a shrewd smile, and said : ‘ Let him be incog- 
nito, or if you will have a name for him, call 
him M. Sponge, for he must be squeezed for 
stealing the wife of my bosom.’ Then he 
laughed a villainous laugh, and went on. 

“ ‘ N'importe. Par Dieii, Launston, if the 
Scotch Laird’s estate does not yield gold for 
me, the Laird himself shall pay with the price 
of his happiness, and for very truth, gold or 
no gold, my mind is in the humor for revenge 
on the both of them, and I look forward to 
fine sport in the hunting of them. Par Dieu, 
I think I’m in the chase for the wantonness of 
it, though I look to have my pockets lined by 
the way.’ 

' It’s a dirty trick you plan,’ said I, ' have 
you no feeling for the woman you married? 
and the man, what ill has he done ? ” 

‘ To perdition with the wife and the man,’ 
he cried, ' my mind does not run in the chan- 
nel of sentiment; I’m in for the sport of the 


132 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

thing, or if you like, pour passer le temps. 
Besides, do you think I’ll see another man with 
a wife of mine ? ’ 

“‘A wife of yours?’ said 1. ‘She ne’er 
was a wife of thine in more than name, if what 
I’ve heard be true, for she was but a child when 
you mock-married her, and little she got from 
you but immediate desertion and abuse. 
Then have you not been dead for near ten 
years? I’ll be sworn the woman has ne’er 
named you to the man, and that he married 
her without knowing that you ever existed. 
She’d not be like to take pride in telling of 
her alliance to such as you. What devil’s 
prank is this that you play? This is not the 
deed of a man, but a devil.’ 

“ ‘ Vive le diable! ” he cried, laughing. ‘ If 
I take virtue to my arms, I must bid adieu to 
the gold, and I cannot do that, or my own 
happiness is gone. No, no, Launston, it is 
a matter of self-interest, — my happiness or the 
man’s, — and I’ve decided in my own favor. 
Already I have pulled the strings, and the 
puppets are beginning to dance for me.’ 

“ ‘ You have no claim on her by law,’ said I. 

“ ‘ A snap for the law,’ answered he. ‘ I 
have a claim, I think, on her pride and her 
peace of mind.’ 


“ YOU'RE A FINE, MERRY DEVIL," I33 

'' ' And now you have begun your dirty 
work/ said I, ' how prospers it ? ' 

“ ' A curse on ill luck ! not as well as I liked 
at first, but fortune begins to smile. You see 
I scented the quarry and ran it down by writ- 
ing a letter to madame, announcing my safe 
return from the grave. I got my scent partly 
through one of madame’s former friends, and 
partly through a vagabond countryman of 
yours, for both held a link or two in the chain 
I was trying to piece together. I say, then, 
I wrote a letter to ma chere, and in it I penned 
a chapter of such vows of love and yearning 
tenderness and repentance that I swear, when 
I put it down in black and white and read it 
over, I was near melted to tears with my own 
eloquence. Then I added a chapter of pas- 
sion, threatening the life of the man who had 
robbed me of a wife, and ended by a promise 
to invade the domestic paradise in person to 
tell my own version of our affaire d’amour, if 
my lady did not respond as I decreed. I for- 
warded the packet, and waited, and man Dieu, 
I winged my bird at the first shaft, for by the 
next mail across the Channel came a letter 
from madame, saying she would meet me at 
the place and time appointed in my letter; for 
I had named them both like a dictator, and I 


134 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


think madame had not forgotten that I was a 
man like to keep my word, and as implacable 
as Fate. I waited for the time to come, but 
as the devil would have it, the craft she was 
directed to sail by was seized at Boulogne by 
order of the Government for having on board 
a cursed Austrian spy, and the whole com- 
pany of voyagers was marched to the nearest 
military post, and kept under strict surveil- 
lance for weeks. All this I learned not 
twenty-four hours since, just when I was be- 
ginning to think of crossing the water to push 
the war in the enemy’s country; when there 
comes a letter from my fair prisoner of state, 
explaining her delay and agreeing again to 
the tryst. It’s on the prospect of a good 
stroke of fortune that I have opened a dozen 
bottles to-day. To-morrow morning I leave 
Paris for Versailles, where, before another 
day, I look to do a good stroke of business, if 
the devil favors me and the Scotch Laird’s 
estate is worth a fair mortgage. So, Laun- 
ston, here’s a health to the devil, and a suc- 
cessful coup de finance at the gateway of the 
King’s chateau.’ ” 


CHAPTER XIV. 

AT THE GATEWAY OF THE KING's CHATEAU. 

“ It was long after midnight, being well on 
to daybreak, when I rose to bid adieu to 
Courtray, and when he showed me down the 
long stair of his lodging, holding the candle 
at the top landing, I will confess to you, Gilli- 
cuddy, that I was taking a journey not with- 
out peril, for the stair was steep and narrow 
and dark, and the drink I had sipped was 
humming under my bonnet like a bee. I had 
come to the lower landing in safety, and had 
got a whiff of the morning air, and was just 
drawing my cloak about me, for it was both 
cold and wet this November dawn, when I 
heard a great sound of feet hurrying by, and 
a confusion of people crying and shouting. 

When I got out into the street there was 
a lively carnival a-going, and you would have 
said that all Paris had just sworn an oath that 
night to abolish the institution of sleep with 
the institution of monarchy, for by the Holy 
Cross I think Paris never went to bed that 


*35 


136 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


night. Since the terrible night of the 14th of 
July, when poor De Launay heard all Paris 
knocking and crying at the gates of the Bas- 
tile, the people were gone mad with excite- 
ment, and there was no quiet or rest with 
them either night or day, so I was not sur- 
prised to see a bit of fever and midnight orgie. 
I had not gone far when I saw plain enough 
that some devil's work was brewing more 
than common, for the streets were just surg- 
ing with a mob of the wildest creatures, men 
and women, mostly from the Saint Antoine 
quarter. 

‘‘I think you would have thought, Gilli- 
cuddy, if you had seen them, that the devil 
had loosed his imps out of hell to carouse in 
the streets. The whole city was alive with 
them, and from the farthest corners you could 
hear the cries of them, and the roar of the city 
was like the sound of an ocean surging in the 
distance. 

I could see that serious mischief was 
brewing, for there came pouring from every 
turning the wildest company eye had ever 
rested on. Ragged and wretched the most 
of them were, and gaunt and famished they 
were, some carrying staves and some torches, 
so that they were like creatures of the lower 


GA TE WA Y OF THE KING 'S CHATEA U. 137 

regions more than beings of earth. As they 
went hurrying along, the outcry and voice of 
them was dreadful to hear, and the one word 
that rose above the din was ‘ Bread! Bread! 
Bread! * and indeed I could not wonder at it, 
for they looked sorely in need of it, and not 
only for bread did they cry, but indeed it was 
the baker they cried for as well, and well I 
knew who the baker was, for they meant no 
other than Louis the King, who, I think, the 
most of them thought was up to his armpits 
in dough, and just baking long French loaves 
by the cartload at the Palace of Versailles. 

When I had gotten in the neighborhood 
of the Gardens of the Tuileries, being carried 
on by the mob, there in the wide space they 
name the Champs Elysees, I think there were 
gathered tens of thousands, and the terror of 
the scene was past description, for every soul 
of them seemed possessed, and what with 
singing and dancing and shouting themselves 
hoarse. Bedlam was let loose and all men had 
lost their reason. 

I was not long in getting to the bot- 
tom of this awful stir, for indeed there 
were public speakers enough haranguing the 
mob, and telling the matter to the people 
in a way like to stir them to despera- 


13 * KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH, 

tion. Some of these speaking were women 
and some were men. Fairly beside them- 
selves they were, frenzied with enthusiasm, 
just shouting and gesticulating, and wild with 
a mad zeal, being like to drop with the energy 
and force of their feelings. 

‘‘ You see, Gillicuddy, there were a wheen 
men in Paris that had of late come to the 
surface of the scum of the city, and among 
them there was a horse-leech, rotten of body 
and bloodthirsty of appetite, named Marat. 
It was mainly through him and another clever 
rascal, named Camille Desmoulins, that the 
people were set mad to do deeds of violence. 
These two had gotten such a hold on the 
poor, ignorant raft of mortals, that they had 
but to name a thing, and all men were ready 
to take it up and carry it forward. 

Now, Gillicuddy, as Paris had an empty 
stomach, and as old Foulon, living high on the 
State revenue, had once suggested that the 
people, being cattle, might eat grass, it was not 
to be wondered at that these same cattle should 
be ready to listen, when men of the Marat and 
Desmoulins stamp whispered that the King at 
Versailles was the baker, and that by going to 
him, he would, mayhap, share his loaves with 
them. So it was that Paris was up that night 


GA TE WA y OF THE KING'S CHATEA U. 1 39 

making preparations to march on to the 
baker at Versailles, and now the cry went 
forth, * Allans! Allons! ’ and everywhere that 
was the word, and Paris was about to pay its 
respects to the Assembly sitting at Versailles, 
and supplicate the King for bread at the doors 
of his palace. 

'' Sitting here, Gillicuddy, in this quiet hole 
of Glenhaugh, you can get no idea of the ex- 
citement of that time, nor can you realize 
here the nature of these Frenchmen, for they 
were like powder, ready to explode at any 
minute and set a blaze a-going that would rage 
hot and terrible. 

“ I tell you these things, Gillicuddy, be- 
cause they belong to my story, and if you 
picture not Paris as I saw it that night, 
you will not be able so well to comprehend 
the matters that came about later, for it was 
through this wild time, and mad rage of the 
people, that the strange things I have to tell 
were wrought out, and, Gillicuddy, you may 
believe me I will tell you no more of this inter- 
esting bit of French history than my story 
gives warrant for, so just take another glass 
and keep your soul in patience, and your ears 
open, for I am just on the brink of a matter 
that will astonish you. 


140 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH, 


“ There was no sleep for me the rest of that 
night, and little there was for any man. The 
whole city was in a ferment, and at daylight, 
instead of the fever of the night abating, it 
was just grown into a delirium, I may say. 
Then, what with bells ringing and drums 
beating, and all people crazed with the spirit 
of the Evil One, the day broke and the 
clouds hung heavy over the city, and evil was 
the omen of them. 

“ In the van of the mob, up got a woman 
named Theroigne de Merricourt, and a brave 
and handsome harlot she was, Gillicuddy, and 
sitting astride of a cannon in the Champs 
Elysees, called upon the women of the mob to 
follow her, and with that and the beating of 
drums, and the cry of ‘ Allans a Versailles ! ' 
coming from every throat, there started up 
ten thousand wretches in petticoats, and with 
a terrible enthusiasm just took the march to 
Versailles, with Mme. Merricourt and a rascal 
named Maillard, at the head of them. 

“ It was a wonderful sight, Gillicuddy, to see 
that army of women, with wild cries and mad 
antics, just follow in the wake of Mme. Merri- 
court and take the road for Versailles, and 
half of Paris following after. ’Deed, Gilli- 
cuddy, it was an army that pressed its recruits 


GA TE WA y OF THE J^ING *5 CHATEA U, 141 

with small ceremony, and no man or woman 
dared to ^ay nay to its invitation. A merry 
army it was, and an army not to be resisted, 
so that people, willy-nilly, were gotten into its 
ranks, and just hurried on with a devil-may- 
care mixture of tragedy and humor. With 
supplication, and polite invitation, and threat, 
aye and banter, the army was recruited, and 
when these failed, then it was at the point of 
a pike that the recruits took service, or were 
dragged by the neck into the midst of it. 

“ I was not for taking service in it myself, 
being more bent on taking the part of a wit- 
ness of its maneuvers, but ere long two ter- 
rible hags, like twin furies out of hell, with 
their hair straggling wet about their shoul- 
ders and their skirts bedraggled, just took me 
each of them by an elbow, and with a devilish 
merriment escorted me into the ranks among 
a score of beings like themselves, who re- 
ceived me like a brother with demonstrations 
of joy, some of them throwing their arms 
about me, and kissing my cheeks in an ecstasy 
of patriotism. 

It would be a long story to tell of the 
march to Versailles with that company of the 
devil's imps. The rain fell and drenched us, 
and the mire was thick, but with drums beat- 


142 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

ing and pikes waving we traveled on. Ah, 
but it was a strange company; many fainting 
by the way, exhausted, and the rest just 
tramping on, shouting and singing, mad and 
merry with the humor of it. 

It was well on in the afternoon when we 
came to the bridge that crosses the Seine at 
Sevres. Over it we marched, the whole 
devil's corps of us, and up through the streets 
of Sevres, tired and straggling we went, till 
at last we came to the very doors of the Ver- 
sailles palace and halted. 

Where that vast mob of strange beings 
which Paris had spewed forth would find lodg- 
ing and victualing no man could tell ; but there 
it was, descending upon the town of Sevres 
even to Versailles, and at the very doors of the 
King’s palace, under the drizzling rain, hungry 
and exhausted, lying down in the streets, creep- 
ing under stairs and getting what shelter, rest, 
and food any favoring circumstances offered. 

“ I was sorely in need of rest, Gillicuddy, 
after my march, and it was not to inspect the 
crockery of Sevres that I deserted the ranks 
of that vagabond army of termagants and St. 
Antoine’s cut-throats, but for a morsel to stay 
my stomach and a drink of something to 
warm me. 


GA TE WA Y OF THE KING CHATEA U. 143 

It was a great comfort when I found 
a lodgment in a Versailles hostelry, and 
lay down in a strange bed, so tired, for I had 
marched four long leagues after an all-night's 
excitement, that I confess to you, Gillicuddy, 
I missed saying my prayers, and just fell 
asleep with my clothes on. 

“ I think it was far on to midnight, or 
rather toward the small hours of the morning, 
when I was awakened by a great commotion 
stirring in the streets and when I had gotten 
up and come out to learn the cause of it, there 
was a great uproar and hurly-burly of a thou- 
sand night prowlers and stragglers just risen 
from their beds, or what holes they lay in, and 
thronging about in some new excitement. In 
the midst of it all I could hear, far down the 
avenue, the rumble of drums, and the tramp, 
tramp of a great body of men coming forward, 
and soon, bravely advancing, came a vast army 
of soldiers, which was no other than the Na- 
tional Guard of thirty thousand armed men, 
with Lafayette at their head, newly come from 
Paris. 

When the columns had gone by, and 
the shivering tatterdemalions had gotten back 
to such beds and hutches and stray corners as 
they could find, I went back to my lodging, and 


144 


KENNEDY OF GLENUAUGff. 


while I may say I did not get on my knees, yet 
I thanked God, Gillicuddy, that there was some 
prospect of the rabble being awed into respect 
for authority, such as it was, and that La- 
fayette was at our elbow. 

“ It was in the early morning when I awoke 
again, and went out to find that mischief 
was awake with the dawn and the devil 
busy. 

“ It seems, Gillicuddy, that a rascally raft of 
cut-throat prowlers, bent more on thieving and 
villainy than any other thing, were early at 
the gates of the palace, and these, bandying 
gibes with the King's bodyguard, had come to 
ugly words. It was not long before worse 
than words were passed, and there came a shot 
from a gun in the hands of one of the Guards 
that laid a prowler low. 

That shot, Gillicuddy, was the signal 
for the bottomless pit to open, for the cry 
went forth on every tongue that the King’s 
Guard had fired on the people, and now at 
every gate and grating of the Chateau, a 
thousand hands clutched and rattled, seek- 
ing entrance to wreak vengeance. There 
was howling and cursing and more shots 
were fired, and the mob, growing greater and 
fiercer, stormed at the gates mad with rage, at 


GA TE IV a Y of the KING' G ChAtEA U. 145 

last forcing an entrance and battering at the 
palace doors. 

“ It was a bonny devil’s dance to begin the 
day with. I cannot picture to you, Gillicuddy, 
the terror of it. Like devils crazed, thousands 
of enraged wretches just choked the streets, 
shouting and shrieking. It was havoc and 
terror that ruled all, and the fierce temper of 
all men was a terrible thing to see. 

“ Like a great sea, the multitude heaved this 
way and that with the force of its dreadful cur- 
rents of madness. Over the far-reaching, toss- 
ing sea of. heads I could see a thousand pikes 
and staves brandished in fury, and wild arms 
thrown up in a frenzy of rage. The uproar 
and tumult of ten thousand throats was like the 
roar of a tempest, and every moment louder it 
grew, and wilder the madness of it raged. 

I had climbed on a wall, and was looking 
toward the palace steps, where the mob had 
now gotten planted, and was forcing its way 
into the palace, and I saw a long pike lifted 
high above the heads of the people, and on it 
the bleeding head of one of the King’s Guard. 
Then there came a great shout, and the whole 
mass seemed to surge and heave in every 
quarter. 

I was but newly turned from looking at 


146 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


this horrible death’s head when, Gillicuddy, I 
saw a thing that startled me far more than the 
bleeding head. 

As I hope for salvation, Gillicuddy, 
and wonderful as you may think it, there 
in the thick of the throng I saw Courtray, 
and near him a woman that I knew by her 
English dress could be no other than she he 
had appointed to meet. I think, Gillicuddy, 
you will be like to doubt m,y words, for that 
was a strange place for these two to come to- 
gether, but, Gillicuddy, you must just account 
for the twain being in this wild company by the 
fatality of events which bore them, when they 
met here, into the great whirling multitude 
with a power which no soul could resist, for 
i’ faith the potency of this terrible passion 
which possessed all people was as a maelstrom, 
drawing all men into its currents. 

“ Now, Gillicuddy, you may well open 
your eyes in wonder, but, on my honor 
as a man, this is no romance but God’s 
truth. Little had either of them dreamed 
of the terrible things that were to happen 
there. As I saw them together, strug- 
gling in the mob that pressed on all sides, 
I thought it a strange freak of fate indeed that 
could draw these two, once husband and wife, 


GA TE WA Y OF THE KING 'S CHAtEA U. 147 

from such widely separated quarters, and with 
the grim irony of destiny, place them side by 
side in that wild and awful tide of human 
passions. 

“ I was not so far removed from them but 
that I could see that Courtray was seeking to 
get speech with the woman in the midst of that 
heaving sea of humanity. Ah, Gillicuddy, it 
was a beautiful face the lady had, and a brave 
one. Aye, it was as well a defiant one, and for 
all the villainy of Courtray, I thought it would 
be no easy matter for him to affright this 
woman, for there was a dreadful and fearless 
look of resolved purpose on her face, which 
showed me Courtray would find no easy victim 
to cower before him. 

‘‘ As the tumult grew, and the great crowd 
moved back and forth, the two were pushed 
toward me, and at last, not ten paces away, 
they stood directly below me, Courtray having 
come within a pace of her. I could see that 
Courtray was striving to keep close to the 
woman, and a devilish smile was on his face. 
Pressing toward her and ever following her 
in the tide of moving mortals, I saw him at 
last come close and whisper to her, and as he 
did so, he reached forth his hand and took her 
by the arm with a devilish familiarity. 


148 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


The woman started at the sound of his 
voice, and turned white at his touch. Her eyes 
flashed upon him for an instant with a glance 
of deadly hate, and the next moment she drew 
forth from her dress a weapon ; I saw it glisten 
in her hand, and I saw a sullen, determined 
purpose on her face. 

'' I lifted my voice, Gillicuddy, and called 
to Courtray, but even as I cried there was 
a great and sudden movement in the whole 
multitude of people, and a deafening noise of 
firing and shouting. The National Guard 
was forcing the mob from the palace gates, 
and the surging throng trembled to its center, 
and in a great panic fell back in confusion most 
dreadful. 

I saw the two swept past me still to- 
gether, and in the midst of struggling and 
fighting and cursing I saw them carried 
away, still side by side, tossed helpless in 
the human billows, a hundred pikes waving 
over and about them, and the cries of a thou^ 
sand voices ringing around them. Near them 
I saw a man felled with a pike, and heard a 
shriek of agony, and then, raised high over- 
head, I saw a bleeding face dripping on the 
end of a pike. In the furious melee and 
tumult still I saw the two together. 



I SAW HIM BREAK THROUGH THE RABBLE 



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GA TE WA Y OF THE KING 'S CHA TEA U. i S I 

Suddenly, Gillicuddy, there came a tall 
man not three paces away, fighting his way 
toward them. I saw him make a road through 
the confused, heaving mob, as though naught 
could stay him. He was like a madman crazed 
with the passions of hell. 

I could not keep my eyes from him. 
A long rapier was in his hand, and toward 
Court ray and the woman he pressed. Near he 
came, and nearer. I saw him break through 
the rabble and stand face to face with Courtray 
and speak to him. I saw Courtray start, 
turn pale, and answer with a contemptuous 
sneer, and I heard the wild shriek of a 
woman. 

“ The next moment I saw the tall man rush 
upon Courtray like a madman, and drive the 
blade at his heart. In an instant Courtray had 
seized the woman and thrust her before him. 
The horror of it, Gillicuddy, is before me now. 
It was the woman that was pierced through 
with the steel, for I saw it all in the midst of 
that terrible tumult. She fell with a shriek, 
while the multitude surged wildly around her. 
I lost sight of Courtray and all things clearly, 
for naught was there to see but a wild and 
tossing sea of struggling men. I saw staves 
and pikes brandished over all and raining blows 


152 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


amidst the dreadful confusion of men gone 
mad. I heard the cries and shouts of the ex- 
cited mob of fiends as they struggled and 
fought in a wild surging tempest of passion, 
and scarcely had the mad cries come to me be- 
fore I saw another horrible severed head go 
up in the midst of the struggling mass with 
gouts of blood dripping from it. 

My God, Gillicuddy, it was the head of 
Courtray. The cruel mob had found another 
victim to satiate its thirst for blood. 

I was sick at the sight. The world 
seemed to swim before me, and when I 
could look again, for I was like to drop 
from the wall with dizziness, there was such 
a horrible confusion and sound of tumultuous 
madness that no tongue could tell it. I was 
sick at the sight, and I felt myself reeling in 
a swoon. Only this I know, Gillicuddy, and 
as God is my Judge, I tell what is true, as I 
felt the dreadful qualm of fainting possess me, 
I rallied for a moment, and before I fell to the 
ground as one dead I saw the tall man carried 
away by the current of that chaos of terrors 
and borne from the place. I saw him look up 
with a death-white face to that dripping head 
as an irresistible tide swept him through the 
human whirlpool, and I heard a wild laugh, 


GA TE WA Y OF THE KING *S CHAtEA U, 153 

like the laugh of a maniac, clear above the din, 
and the face of the man with the blood-stained 
rapier was the face of your master, the Laird 
of Glenhaugh/' 


CHAPTER XV. 


WHAT THINK YOU OF THE LAIRD NOW.^ 

You may be sure Sir Gilbert’s story set my 
heart to beating, and when he had gotten to 
the end of it, I just sat pale, like any ghost, and 
stared at him speechless. Sir Gilbert looked 
at me a moment, and then poured out a glass 
for himself, and, pushing the bottle over to me, 
said: 

Help yourself to a dram, Gillicuddy.” 

My hand was shaking when I took the bot- 
tle, and when I had taken a glass in silence, 
I looked over the table to Sir Gilbert, and he 
was still looking at me, as if waiting for a word 
from me. 

I laid my glass down, and dropped my eyes 
to the floor, sitting like one borne down with 
the shock of dreadful tidings, and there was 
a weakness like a sickness upon me, when I 
found my voice, and said : 

My God, Sir Gilbert ! it’s a horrible story 
ye hae told me.” 

Aye, that it is,” he answered. ‘‘ What 


*54 


“ H^BAT THINK YOU OF THE LAIRD? ” 155 

think you of the Laird now? He that has 
taken the life of his wife, and she an innocent 
woman ? 

I think a muckle pity o' him," said I ; but, 
oh, man, the Laird ne'er did sic a deed in his 
right mind." 

“ I'm thinking, Gillicuddy, he knew full well 
what he did, and that it was a planned and 
deliberate thing." 

“ How dare ye say it ! " I cried, and I got to 
my feet in anger. ‘‘ I wonder to hear ye. 
Little ken ye my master, if ye can say sic a 
thing o' him." 

Was it chance that took him to France? " 
said he. 

It was madness," said I, “ and. Sir Gilbert, 
I'll no' hear a word o' ill o' him." 

You weary my patience," cried he; your 
master was crazed with jealousy, it is true, but 
what he did was a thing planned." 

You hae a great confidence in yer ain 
opinion," I said dryly. 

‘‘ Just keep your temper, Gillicuddy," he 
said, ** and sit you down and listen to what 
I have to say. Your devotion to the Laird 
does you credit, my man, but you must not let 
your devotion carry you beyond reason. I've 
told you a thing that throws some new light on 


156 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

the mystery of Glenhaugh; you’ll admit that, 
my man; and if you are a man of sense, I think 
you’ll just sit down and discuss the matter with 
me, and look at matters from the standpoint of 
reason, and be damned to feeling. I wish not 
to speak ill of the Laird, Gillicuddy, but to get 
at the core of the matter. You have been a 
close-mouthed man with me since I’ve come to 
Glenhaugh, and little could I get from you. 
Now I’ve given you a chapter, do you not 
think it would be well for you and me to come 
to a bit more confidence? I have seen a bit 
more of the world than you, and you have 
seen a bit more of Kennedy of Glenhaugh. 
Two heads are better than one, and between us, 
with the light we have, the mystery of this 
strange story may be solved from beginning to 
end.” 

Sir Gilbert,” said I, “ if I hae said a hasty 
word, ye will pardon me, for J hae a great love 
and pity for my master. Ye hae been fair wi’ 
me, and I will be as fair wi’ you; but that 
awfu’ deed was the act o’ a madman.” 

We’ll say no more of that, Gillicuddy,” 
said he, “ and far be it from me to think dif- 
ferent. I never said aught against his mad- 
ness, but there was a cause for the mad act, and 
a plan for its fulfillment, and behind these 


“ PV//AT THINK YOU OF THE LAIRD i57 

things, my man, lies the mystery, and if the 
twain of us just put our heads together, we’ll 
get nearer the truth of the matter, I’m think- 
ing.” 

‘‘ The whole thing,” said I, “ is past under- 
standing. I’m just grown weak in the mind 
wi’ thinkin’ o’ it. From first to last, it’s but 
a jumble o’ mystery, and I canna find a straight 
road into it or out o’ it. It’s a story wi’ 
neither beginning nor end.” 

“ I’m much of your way of thinking my- 
self,” answered Sir Gilbert. I’m far from 
understanding it, but I have great faith in the 
power of reason, and, Gillicuddy, I think if we 
begin fair, and just put our wits to work, we 
may get at the truth in some measure, and 
make the crooked matter a bit straight.” 

“ Then,” said I, “ we maun begin wi’ the 
accursed packet that came frae France, for that 
was the first o’ the calamity.” 

‘‘ Let us begin back of that,” said Sir Gilbert, 
** Let us begin with the Lady and Courtray in 
France twelve years back.” 

“ And what ken ye o’ that time? ” said I. 

‘‘ It’s little I ken, Gillicuddy; but I have a 
mind to speculate a bit,” he replied. 

I’m no’ fond o’ speculations,” I said to him, 
“ I’m fonder o’ facts.” 


15 ^ KEl^NBDY OP GLENHAUGH. 

Hearken to me,’^ said he, and mayhap 
fact and speculation may help to unfold the 
truth. Here’s what I have to offer for your 
consideration: A lass in her teens is beguiled 
by a devil in the shape of a man, named Cour- 
tray. A woeful marriage follows. The lass 
is betrayed and abused and deserted by the vil- 
lain; more than that, she is disowned and dis- 
graced by her father. There’s a beginning in 
life for a young girl in a strange land. She 
is cast alone on the world without a friend. 
She is humiliated and deserted by those who 
should protect her. Just think o’er that, Gil- 
licuddy, and tell me what is this miserable out- 
cast to do ? One of two things would she do. 
She would fall into the depths of ruin and dis- 
grace, a lost creature, or she would fly from 
her present surroundings, and hide her iden- 
tity of misery and shame in a new life and 
under a new name. That is a rational specu- 
lation, and I submit it to you, Gillicuddy, is 
it not reasonable ? With abuse, and desertion, 
and loneliness, and despair as her only experi- 
ence of life, and with a great terror upon her 
as one ffunted to the last extremity, she would 
end her life with her own hand, or begin a 
new life in a new place, Avith a new purpose 
and a new name. It is a reasonable thing to 


“ PVI/AT THINK YOU OF THE LAIRD?'^ 159 

think, you cannot dispute, Gillicuddy, and there 
you have the fact of her leaving France as a 
matter fairly accounted for.” 

I interrupted him to say, “ Aye, it’s a likely 
enough conclusion, and has reason to bolster 
it, but there’s a little matter that troubles me, 
and that is the question o’ her history among 
the new friends she would mak’ in her new 
existence. She couldna begin life without 
question as to her past. She would hae to 
account for her life. Her friends would want 
to ken something o’ her past. I fear they 
wouldna accept her as dropping frae the skies. 
She would need to hae a story o’ some kind to 
tell. I’m thinkin’.” 

“Aye, Gillicuddy, she would that,” he re- 
plied, “ but her story would be but a story, a 
fabrication. It could not be else, if she kept 
her secret. A story made to fit the case she 
would plan. A story, let us say at a venture, 
of being an orphan, reared in a home with a 
hundred other unknown and deserted found- 
lings, or some such matter, cunningly told. 
The Laird could tell you that story. I’m think- 
ing; but whatever it was, Gillicuddy, it would 
be a story planned to hide the truth, a story 
to fit her new life and to blot out the past. 
Then we will say she hears of the death of the 


i6o KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

man Courtray, and she is a free woman at last, 
cut adrift from the past. Think of the hope 
that this would bring, Gillicuddy. Would it 
not lift her from the slough of despond, think 
ye? Then the years would bring comfort and 
peace, and at last unite her in a happy mar- 
riage to a good man; for, being a woman of 
education, she would have found her way, say, 
as a governess or lady's companion, into good 
company. Is it not a reasonable speculation, 
even if I had not certain facts to bear me out 
in it?" 

‘‘ You hae a long head and a clever tongue. 
Sir Gilbert," said I. ‘‘ Your speculations are 
fair, I canna gainsay, for indeed rumor had 
it that my Lady was of doubtful family and 
pedigree, but ye hae a long story before ye yet, 
and ril ken mair when ye get to the end o' it." 

Never fear," h,e answered, “ I'll finish my 
story with reason, rest easy, my man. I have 
facts enough to prove my theories, aye and a 
material fact to prove to you that the Laird 
never heard of Courtray; but I'll pass that now 
and weave out my story with a bit invention, 
where fact is wanting." 

“You hae a great confidence in yer powers 
o' invention," said 1. 

“ Gillicuddy," he cried, “ I ask you is what 


“ H^JIAT THINK YOU OF THE LAIRD? " i6i 

I have said not close to the facts, as far as we 
have them, and of reasonable conjecture? ” 

** I canna deny the reasonableness of yer 
story, as a story,’" said I, ‘‘ but it’s unco’ like 
invention, as ye say, the maist o’ it.” 

Aye,” he replied, “ and it is invention, but 
if you can get at the truth of this matter by 
another road, just tell me your plan and I’ll 
try it.” 

“ ’Deed,” said I, ‘‘ I see no better road than 
the one yer takin’ — but ” 

He took me up at my last word, and said 
a bit impatiently, '‘You tire me with that 
' but.’ Do you not see that if we had the truth 
before us, we would have no need of seeking 
for it?” 

“ Gang on wi’ yer invention,” said I. " I’m 
convinced that ye hae baith fact and reason to 
support it.” 

“ Ah, Gillicuddy,” he said, smiling, “ you 
talk like a rational man, as you are. Now 
follow me closely. Here’s the Lady of Glen- 
haugh living a life of ease and comfort in this 
same house. The life of the past is gone into 
oblivion as if it had never been. The story 
has never been told, as I can prove to you, and 
the new life has prospered, untouched with a 
shadow of fear. In the security and peace of 


i 62 kei^nedy of clenhaugh. 

this happy existence — now mark me — there 
comes a visitor from the past, a voice from the 
grave, a ghost walks in, the devil comes forth 
with a shameful secret to tell, and the lady gets 
a packet. Is it not a startling thing, a thing 
to strike terror and shame and dismay to her 
heart? Let your memory carry you back to 
that day, Gillicuddy, and tell me, do the facts 
not bear me out in my reasoning? Was not 
this lady disturbed woefully? ” 

‘‘ Aye,’' said I. Yer words are truth, I 
canna doubt, for it comes back to me as though 
it were yesterday, the getting of that accursed 
packet.” 

‘‘ Now, Gillicuddy,” he went on, after hear- 
ing me with much satisfaction, the lady is to 
be exposed, her past is to be revealed. How 
will she explain her deceit, her life falsehood? 
What will the Laird think? Will he pardon 
her ? Will his love be strong enough to with- 
stand the shock of such a revelation? Will 
his mind see clear through the fogs of sug- 
gestive guilt and actual deceiving? And, Gil- 
licuddy, there is another terrible thought, and 
it is this: Even if the love of the Laird will 
rise superior to this attack, how will it be if 
these two men meet? Suspicion, jealousy, 
hate, aye, murder itself, will surely follow. 


iVlfAT THINK YOU OF THk LAtRD?'' 163 

What will she do? Just stop here, Gillicuddy, 
and try to think a bit of the state of mind this 
unfortunate woman is in. Can you picture it ? 
If she tells the Laird all her story, can his love 
be trusted? ” 

“ Aye, that it can,’’ I cried, interrupting 
him, for he was aye a man quick to forgive, 
and generous wi’ his love.” 

‘‘ But,” spoke up Sir Gilbert, ‘‘ that arch- 
devil, raised from the bottomless pit, is threat- 
ening to step in at Glenhaugh. There’s a 
situation for you, Gillicuddy. The Laird and 
Courtray will not agree. The Laird is an ugly 
man to cross, and Courtray is a wicked and a 
desperate one. The Laird’s life is in the bal- 
ance. Already he is a wronged man, a de- 
ceived man, a doomed man, and an angry man 
he will be. Ah, Gillicuddy, what will she do ? 
There is but one thing, and no other to do. 
She will go to Courtray.” 

Sir Gilbert paused, and the two of us sat 
thinking. At last I spoke. 

Sir Gilbert, I’m wondering why my Lady 
left Glenhaugh as she did. What hoped she 
to accomplish wi’ Courtray? Would it no’, 
think ye, hae been as wise for her to hae bided 
at hame, and made a clean breast o’ her 
troubles, and left Courtray to the deevil. I 


i 64 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGN. 

see no guid reason for her leaving as she did. 
What was to be gained by it? Tell me that, 
if ye can. ’Deed she might hae met Courtray 
at her ain door ? ” 

Do you think it would have been a whole- 
some thing for the Laird and Courtray to come 
together ? ” asked Sir Gilbert. 

It would hae been a dreadfu’ thing,” I 
cried. 

‘‘Aye, that it would, Gillicuddy, and that 
my Lady well knew and feared. The coming 
together of these men would never do. It 
would mean death to one or both of them. 
Tell me, Gillicuddy, what, think you, would 
have been the consequences with Courtray face 
to face with the Laird, aye and Courtray with 
a story o’ love, and deceit, and dishonor to tell 
of my Lady?” 

“ There would hae been the crossing o’ 
swords,” cried I. “ There would hae been 
murder. I’m thinking.” 

“Aye,” replied Sir Gilbert, “that and no 
other thing. My Lady knew well that the 
Laird would be stained with a horrid crime, or, 
more likely, lying dead at Courtray’s feet. 
There was no other thing to do in the whole 
bad business but to keep these two from meet- 
ing, and it was for that my Lady left Glen- 


“ PVI/AT THINK YOU OF THE LAIRD?'' 165 

haugh beset with shame, sorrow, fear, and 
despair/' 

‘'I believe ye. Sir Gilbert," said I; ‘‘but 
there's one thing that troubles me. What 
hoped my Lady to do wi' Courtray? What 
meant her mission to him ? " 

“ I can answer that, Gillicuddy, though you 
may scoff at my answer. It was not of a 
verity to plead with Courtray. It was not to 
inform the French constabulary of Courtray 's 
return, but — well, Gillicuddy, I'm thinking it 
was to do a desperate and dreadful thing, and 
that was no other than to send M. Courtray 
into the land of spirits, never to return. Aye, 
to do this for him with her own hand, and to 
follow after him to the grave, and so put an 
end to the whole evil and unfortunate matter, 
for she was a sorely driven and desperate 
woman." 

“ God forgie her! " cried I. “ Ah, little 
thought had I when I saw my Lady last, clasp- 
ing her wee Marion and raising her eyes to 
heaven so piteously, that sic a thought was in 
her mind, and sic a resolve was hers. Little 
thought I that she was bidding a last farewell 
to her bairn and leaving my Laird forever." 

“ Listen to me, Gillicuddy," said Sir Gilbert. 
“ Your feelings do you credit; but I'm not 


i66 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


through with my story. My Lady agreed to 
Courtray’s tryst, and even as she did it, down 
she sat and wrote the story of her wretched 
life to the Laird. She confessed all, and hid 
nothing. She put all her love and her truth 
in the letter, and leaving that confession for 
the Laird, off she posted to France.’’ 

Sir Gilbert stopped at this point, and knit his 
brows as though he had come to a difficulty, 
and as he paused, I was trembling with the 
excitement of my feelings. Neither of us 
spoke for a space, till at last Sir Gilbert put 
forth a question : 

‘‘ Tell me, Gillicuddy,” said he, what took 
the Laird to France? ” 

What took the Laird to France? ” said 1. 
“ If ye tell me. Sir Gilbert, I’ll tell you. I 
kenna what took him to France, but ’deed I 
hae sometimes thought that in his search for 
the packet, and he was like a madman wi’ his 
eagerness at it, he must hae found a clew o* 
some kind that told him the secret o’ his wife’s 
journey, for it could hardly hae been chance 
that brought them together. Foreby it was 
after tearin’ and scatterin’ a’ things in his quest 
for the packet that he got me out o’ my bed, and 
before daybreak had set sail frae the pier o’ 
Abbeyfont,” 


“ WHAT THINK YOU OF THE LAIRD?" 167 

“ Might it not have been the French packet 
he found, Gillicuddy? ” asked Sir Gilbert. 

“Would the Lady hae left it, think ye?” 
I asked. 

“ It’s not reasonable to think it,” he an- 
swered. “ But what could have excited him 
to the pitch of frenzy and taken him to France 
in such haste, and not only to France but to 
the place of Courtray’s tryst? Aye, it was 
Courtray’s letter, and cunningly it was worded, 
and like to madden a man with jealous rage. 
Think of it coming to him in his frame of mind 
at the loss of his lady, and after the anxiety of 
the search. A letter cunningly planned with 
vows of love and insinuations of a compact 
both illicit and villainous. I’ll swear it was the 
packet. Like a two-edged sword, Gillicuddy, 
that packet struck the twain and cut them apart, 
aye, and brought them together again. Aye, 
Gillicuddy, it was the packet. I’ll be sworn, 
that took the Laird to France, as it took my 
Lady to France.” 

“ And if what you say be true,” said I, 
“ what reason can ye find for the lady’s leav- 
ing the packet o’ Courtray’s ? It’s no’ like she 
would leave sic a thing for her husband 
to see. What would she leave Courtray’s 
packet for? ” 


i68 


KENNEDY OF GLENNAUGH. 


** Ah, Gillicuddy,” said he, ‘‘ you puzzle me 
with that question. Tm e’en of your way of 
thinking, and damn me if I can give an answer 
that has reason to support it, but in the devil’s 
name, what then sent the Laird to France to 
the very spot that Courtray named? It’s a 
puzzle, the whole crooked matter, and if I 
feared not to bring more trouble upon Glen- 
haugh, it’s the Laird himself I would seek to 
get an answer from.” 

‘‘ Sir Gilbert, for the love o’ heaven, I charge 
ye no’ to speak to the Laird. Better to let 
the matter drop than to bring mair evil to pass. 
It’s a sair subject to him.” 

Well, Gillicuddy,” he replied, “ let us be- 
gin to grope in the dark again. Let us say 
that the Lady in the excitement and distress 
of that evil time, with the fear of Courtray and 
the fear of the Laird, and the leave-taking of 
her wee lass, and the terrible hurly-burly and 
anxiety of it all, just mislaid Courtray ’s letter, 
or hid it, or lost it, for it must have been left 
behind, and I think it was but an accident that 
left it. Let us say it was by one of these 
chances that it came about to fall into the 
Laird’s hands, for of a very truth it was no 
other thing that sent the Laird to France, aye, 
sent him, mad with disappointment and jealous 


“ WHAT THINK YOU OF THE LAIRD 169 

rage, to the very spot of meeting named by 
Courtray/' 

I interrupted him here, and said : Sir Gil- 
bert, ye speak wi’ some reason, but ye’ll no’ 
forget that the lady left Glenhaugh weeks be- 
fore the Laird. There’s the matter o’ time to 
be accounted for. How cam’ they together at 
the set time ? ” 

And that is a puzzle to me, Gillicuddy,” he 
said, “ but let us say that the lady’s imprison- 
ment at Boulogne is to be considered, and that 
the Laird, posting to Versailles, came strangely 
enough upon the pair, in the nick of time, but 
that’s a speculation we must accept as but a 
whim of Fate.” 

I dinna like the whim o’ Fate,” said 1. 

No more do I,” said he, but it’s not a 
matter essential in itself, for you see, Gilli- 
cuddy, the meeting of the three was a fact.” 

1 see no way but to accept your reason- 
ing,” said I ; but ’deed I wish there were less 
speculation and mair fact in it a’; but let it 
stand as ye say, and hear me. Sir Gilbert, for I 
hae another puzzling question for ye. What 
hae ye to say o’ the letter the Lady wrote to the 
Laird, explaining her story? I’m wonderin’ 
to hear o’ it.” 

And hear of it you will,” he cried. 


170 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

When he had said this he just looked at me 
with the most impudent smile, and leaving the 
matter as though it were but a trifle we were 
discussing, began humming a bit of French 
music. Then he pushed the bottle over to me, 
and said : 

‘‘ Gillicuddy, before we go deeper into this 
matter, what think you of another sup of the 
liquor ? ’’ 


CHAPTER XVI. 


“ I THINK YOU ARE BUT A DOURE MAN.” 

Sir Gilbert's impudence and freedom were 
past bounds I thought, and I was fast losing 
patience with him, when he began again : 

‘‘ Gillicuddy, you’re a Greek scholar, I hear. 
What think you of Socrates ? ” 

“ ’Deed he was a wise man,” said I, and I 
added significantly, I wish there were mair 
like him in these days.” 

He roared so loud with laughter, and grew 
so red in the face when I said this, that I 
feared he would fall in a fit. 

Gillicuddy, was it not Socrates that both- 
ered the Athenians with questions ? ” said he, 
when he recovered speech. 

Aye,” said I, but there was a purpose to 
them.” 

“ Well,” said he, “ for all their purpose the 
poor old philosopher was forced to drink the 
poisonous hemlock; but, Gillicuddy, listen to 
me, and to perdition with Socrates. I am 


172 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

ready to answer a hard question you puzzled 
me with not five minutes syne. If I am of fair 
memory your words were : ‘ What have you to 
say of the letter the Lady wrote to the Laird 
explaining her story?’ Were not these your 
words ? ” 

They were,” said I shortly. 

Then,” said he, ‘‘ I’ll answer them for you, 
but in my own way. Now mark me. I think 
I heard you speak of a bit repair you made 
to the West Tower.” 

Aye,” said I, ‘‘ but, in the name o’ sense, 
what has a bit stone masonry to do wi’ the 
Laird’s troubles? Ye’re off at your specula- 
tions again. Ah, Sir Gilbert, ye hae a fine 
imagination, but I like facts mair than specu- 
lations.” 

Speculations,” cried he, speculations ! and 
what other thing is there to do but speculate? 
Let me appeal to your reason, Gillicuddy, with 
a bit more of speculation, and we’ll get to the 
bottom of the matter, never fear; but if you 
shut your mind against it, you may e’en grope 
and gang to your grave groping. Damn me, 
how other than by speculation know you that 
it was the Lady of Glenhaugh that got her 
death at Versailles? It is true I saw the 
woman pierced through the body with a mortal 


“ YOU ARE BUT A DOURE MAN: 


173 


thrust, but, indeed, as I never in my life had 
seen the lady before, I could not swear it was 
she. I can swear to all the rest, though, to 
Courtray’s story of the Scotch Laird, to the 
meeting of Courtray and the woman, and to 
the reality of the Laird with the bloody deed 
upon his head. Is it not speculation that gives 
that woman a name, and calls her the wife of 
the Laird? Ah, Gillicuddy, with all your 
astuteness, I think you are but a doure man 
when you scorn a bit speculation. But to my 
answer to your question. Now as to the work 
on the West Tower.^' 

Deil tak’ the west tower ! ” I cried, for I 
was grown impatient with him. Fm mair 
bent on stickin’ to the matter o’ the Lady’s 
letter to the Laird.” 

Sir Gilbert laughed till he was red in the 
face, and after he had gotten his breath again, 
he asked : 

“ What man went down into the chimney 
hole you found in the tower ? ” 

‘‘ What recks it what man went doon ? But 
if you will be answered, the stone mason Saw- 
ney McBride. Ye ask but foolish questions,” 
said I. 

Gillicuddy,” said he, “ you’re a man of 
gifts, but you have a great fault.” 


174 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGN. 

''And what may that be?” I asked, a bit 
nettled. 

" You are far too apt to despise the value of 
trifles,” said he. 

I was sorely puzzled at his words, and just 
about to give him a reproof for what I thought 
was his impudent levity, when he asked me : 

" Did any other man go down into the chim * 
ney hole ? ” 

" Aye,” said I, " one Tammy Jamieson, a 
worthless half-wit.” 

" And what found he there ? ” he asked. 

" The smell o’ soot,” said I, " and naething 
mair.” 

"What brought he back with him?” 
said he. 

" Naught that I could see,” I answered, " but 
a dirty face and hands.” 

" Well, Gillicuddy, I have one more ques- 
tion to ask : Who went down first, Sawney or 
Tammy? ” 

" Tammy,” said I, " and found naething.” 

" And that’s where you are far mistaken,” 
he answered; " for Tammy found more than 
the smell of soot, and brought back more than 
a dirty face and hands. He found the letter 
the Lady left for the Laird.” 

"Is that a bit speculation ? ” I asked. 


“ VOU ARE BUT A DOURE MANT i^S 

'' Just bide a bit/' said he. Now mark 
me, Giilicuddy. The writing was left by the 
Lady on the oak cabinet, Fve heard you tell 
about, and what with your decking of the cab- 
inet with vines and wreaths for the Lady's 
home-coming, and what with your haste and 
anxious confusion at her loss, it was pushed 
into the crack you tell about and lost in the 
chimney hole." 

I was surprised at his reasoning, you may 
well believe, but I was far from being satis- 
fied with it; so I said: 

“ I'd like a bit fact to mix wi' that specula- 
tion." 

“ You shall have it," said he. Hearken. 
You see, Giilicuddy, I have not been idle since 
I got back from France, and as there was little 
to get from the steward's confidence, I had to 
take up with the best I could, and I have to 
thank your friend with the long nose and the 
watery eyes for some valuable information." 

‘‘ You mean Geordie Gillespie," said I, and 
he is but a blethering fule." 

By George, it's a fact," said he, using 
Geordie' s very words, so natural like that I 
was fain to laugh for all my seriousness. 

‘‘ Geordie Gillespie," he went on, “ had 
many a story to tell, and among the rest was 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

one he told about the Laird’s getting a letter 
to read at old Tibbie Jamieson’s hut.” , 

‘‘ I heard o’ it,” I said. 

“ Did you,” said he, ‘‘ and what think you 
was that letter ? ” 

‘‘ I never fashed mysel’ aboot it,” I answered 
him. “ I had mair than the blether o’ an idiot 
to trouble me.” 

“ Well, Gillicuddy,” cried he, that letter 
was the lady’s letter to her husband, the Laird, 
and Tam Jamieson got it in the old chimney 
hole, and it was from him that Tibbie got it.” 

“ And is that a bit o’ speculation? ” I asked. 

He looked at me with the strangest look in 
his face, as if he wondered to hear me speak 
with so little respect of his speculations. 
After a moment’s space he took the bottle be- 
fore him and poured out a glass. “ I think, 
Gillicuddy, I’ll drink a health to you,” said he, 
“ so here’s to you, and may the Lord keep you 
ever in the ways of innocence and simplicity.” 

I was angry with him at this, for I counted 
it a piece of his sneering insolence, so I arose 
and gave him a bit of my mind. 

Sir Gilbert,” said I, ‘‘ I dinna think ye need 
mak’ a fool o’ me who hae kept the affairs o’ 
this house as I hae. It is true ye hae brought 
news to me that but for you I would perhaps 


voa ARE BUT A DOURE MAN^ I77 

never hae kenned, but let me say that the news 
ye bring doesna give ye warrant to tak^ the 
Laird’s affairs in yer keepin’ and judge either 
the Laird or mysel’ by what ye ca’ yer specu- 
lative methods. If ye had mair innocence and 
simplicity yoursel’, yer imagination wouldna 
carry ye so far into speculations, but keep ye 
steadier to facts.” 

He never winced under the lash of my 
words, but took all with a most amiable pleas- 
antness that was exasperating, and, when he 
had heard me through, he said with the fairest 
manner : 

“ Gillicuddy, I ne’er meant to hurt your feel- 
ings; I have too much respect for you as a man 
with a good heart and a loyal principle, but 
I think you are a bit too set in your views, and 
jealous of your interest in the Laird’s affairs, 
and like to be feared of interference in the 
Laird’s matters. I have but one thing more 
to say, and that is touching this letter that 
Tam Jamieson found in the chimney hole, and 
which I said was the letter old Tibbie showed 
the Laird. You doubt that that was the 
Lady’s letter. I’m thinking?” 

“ I think it is but what you hae speculated,” 
I said, ‘‘ and puts me in mind o’ the dagger 
Macbeth saw before him.” 


17 ^ tCElSTNEDV OF GLENBAUGB. 

'' Well, Gillicuddy, as you are a man fond of 
facts,’' said Sir Gilbert, ‘‘ what think you of a 
material thing like this,” and as he spoke he 
took from his side pocket a bit of paper, a mere 
fragment that had been crumpled and torn from 
a larger sheet, and handed it to me. I took 
it and looked at it to recognize, without doubt, 
the well-known hand-writing of my Lady. 
Few were the words indeed, but their mean- 
ing was clear to me. 

“ Read it, Gillicuddy,” said Sir Gilbert, 
bending eagerly toward me, “ read it and tell 
me what you think now of a bit material fact ? ” 

I was trembling with emotion as I read 
aloud, at his bidding, these words: have 

told you all. To hide from you the shameful 
story of that infamous being who has risen 
from the grave was the wrong I did. Retri- 
bution and expiation are before me. Fity and 
forgive and pray for mef^ 

I bowed my head, and the paper shook in 
my trembling fingers. For a space no word 
passed between us. At last I turned to Sir 
Gilbert, who was gravely watching me : 

And where got ye this paper? ” I asked. 

“ From Geordie Gillespie,” said he. You 
see I had a great friend in Geordie, and much 
he told me of the Laird’s affairs. Among the 


“ rocr ARE BUT A DOURE MANT I79 

rest, there was an account of the Laird’s woeful 
trouble after he came back that night from 
Tibbie’s cottage, when he fell in a fit and you 
alarmed the house and Geordie helped you to 
lay him in his bed. You see Geordie picked 
up a bit paper that fell from the Laird’s 
clenched hand. He put it in his pouch intend- 
ing to hand it to you, Gillicuddy, for he was 
of a mind that it was in some way connected 
with the Laird’s terrible state, but you were a 
hard man to get at, and a bit short in the tem- 
per with him, and not like to favor him or to 
listen to him, so he just put the matter by, and 
the paper was in his keeping, hidden and un- 
read, till my confidence with him and a drop 
of good liquor brought it forth. You’ll not 
think ill of me, Gillicuddy, for not speaking 
of it earlier in our conference. It gave me 
a fine backing for my speculations.” 

I sat for a moment or two thinking, and 
then, reaching forth my hand to Sir Gilbert, 
I said, “ If I hae spoken an ill word or mis- 
judged ye, I ask yer forgiveness.” 

Let us take a sup of the liquor,” quoth he. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


THE REMORSE OF A GREAT WRONG. 

Before Sir Gilbert and I got to bed the 
cocks were beginning to crow, and before I 
fell asleep my estimate of him had vitally 
changed. 

You may be sure I felt ashamed at the way 
I had used him; not only had I been short of 
speech with him, but ofttimes had just snubbed 
him in a manner both contemptuous and 
formal, and in it all he had never given me 
back but the fairest words, and indeed I do 
think my churlish way with him had provoked 
in him more amusement than anger. 

As I lay in bed that night thinking over all 
that had passed between Sir Gilbert and my- 
self, the mystery of the Laird’s trouble was 
an open book to me, and I could read it from 
beginning to end, and it was Sir Gilbert I had 
to thank for opening the sealed volume. 

Going back over all the strange events of 
the time, I saw clearly the relationship of all the 
circumstances, and I could now account for 

z8o 


THE REMORSE OF A GREAT WRONG. i8l 

the conduct of my master and know those here- 
tofore hidden causes of his woeful behavior. 
No wonder that despair and revenge should 
craze him with a passion to destroy the woman 
who had deceived him and wrecked his happi- 
ness. Not a base passion of revenge, but the 
passion of a great soul aghast at the magnitude 
of wrong and quick to punish. No wonder 
that he heard the voice of a spirit speaking to 
him. It was the yearning of his own heart, 
eloquent in its passionate desire to hear a voice 
of forgiveness for a wrong sadly repented. 
His wandering was the outcome of the same 
intense yearning of his soul ever seeking to 
hear an answer from the spirit land that would 
give rest to the penitent, pleading heart. Aye, 
the very stars he looked up to were emblems 
of the pure life he had wronged, and in them 
he saw some far-distant waiting spirit that, 
beyond this world, would receive him with pity 
and love and pardon. 

For all my sorrow for my dear master, I 
cannot but confess that I was sorely harassed 
at the thought of the great wrong he had done; 
aye, and the great and woeful wickedness of it. 
There were moments, too, when the awful 
whisper was in my soul that my master was a 
man stained with the crime of murder. 


lS2 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

Ah, that ever such a thought should come to 
me was indeed terrible, but yet there it was, and 
my master, he whom I had loved so well, and 
ever exalted in my heart as the best and most 
gentle master and friend, was still a man whose 
hands were red with the blood of an awful 
deed. There was a horror of it all upon me, 
and my faith and love were both like to be 
wrecked when I dwelt upon it, yet, when I 
thought of his cruel deed, I could only think 
of the cruelty of it falling upon himself ; I could 
only think of him as a victim himself, made 
by the strain of harrowing trouble to be the 
doer of a crime that was the saddest punish- 
ment a man could suffer. 

It was the next morning after my long sit- 
ting with Sir Gilbert that, going along the 
lower hall, I met him coming toward me. He 
was walking with his hands under his coat- 
tails, and singing a scrap of some French ditty. 
He stopped and gave me a grand salutation, 
and his manner was as blithe and careless as if 
there was never a care in the world, and never 
a prospect of ill to bother him, or an evil mem- 
ory to haunt him. Singing as merry as a bird 
he was, while I went about my duties with a 
heart sober and sad, and a mind ill at rest, for 
the story of my master's secret, so light a mat- 


THE REMORSE OF A GREAT WRONG. 183 

ter to Sir Gilbert, troubled me more than all 
else that had come to me through our evil days. 

Gillicuddy,’' said he, I’m thinking of 
skipping off for a month or two just for a bit 
of pleasure, as you may say. I’m getting 
down in the dumps for want of some blithe 
company. Lord knows, Gillicuddy, I have en- 
joyed your fellowship with relish, and I’ve 
gotten great profit of mind from it; but you 
are a man of a sober mind, and Glenhaugh 
grows dull for a restless rover like me, so I’ll 
take a season for chasing butterflies in the sun- 
shine of some other field with some ranting 
cronies like myself. The matter we were 
speaking of is at an end, and no more can be 
said. We have the Laird’s story between us, 
and I think it is in safe keeping. The whole 
matter is just this: The Lady of Glenhaugh 
is dead and gone, my friend Courtray, alias 
Picot, is a headless ghost, and the Laird, your 
master, is a living dead man. The secret of 
the past is known to three, and, Gillicuddy, with 
me it’s a dead secret, and with you it’s the same, 
and as for the Laird, it will go to the grave 
with him. Here’s a hand, Gillicuddy, a hand 
of fellowship and good faith. I’ll pine for 
you, and when I get back, we’ll have a bottle 
and talk of more lively matters.” 


184 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


He clapped me on the back heartily, and off 
he went to make preparations for his leave- 
taking. 

In my speech with Sir Gilbert I had told 
him the essence of many things touching the 
Laird and his manner of life, and with these 
I had told him as well of the Laird’s wander- 
ing and of my own experience in the glen. 
He laughed aloud, I well remember, when I 
related the horrors I had felt, crouching in the 
darkness surrounded by wraiths and eldrich 
creatures that had set the cold sweat trickling 
on my body, and when I had given him an 
account of my getting free from the haunted 
glen by crawling on my knees, with my heart 
in my mouth, he had slapped his hand on his 
leg again and again, and just roared and roared 
so lustily that he was like to burst a blood 
vessel with merriment. 

“ Ah, Gillicuddy,” cried he, I remember, “ I 
think you’ll just be the death of me with your 
tales of the supernatural. Man, I wonder you 
got safely back again. If the devil had got 
astride of you, Gillicuddy, he’d have ridden you 
to hell. Aye, but you had a happy deliver- 
ance, I’m pleased at that, but I must just have 
a bit laugh when I think of such a sober and 
respectable Christian man as Adam Gillicuddy 



HE CLAPPED ME ON THE BACK HEARTILY 





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THE REMORSE OF A GREAT WRONG. 187 

down on all-fours, running a race with a score 
of his own phantasmagoria/* 

It had not been to my liking to have Sir Gil- 
bert get so much merriment out of my plight, 
so I had just kept silence on the matter of my 
further adventures that night, and told him 
not a word of what I had seen of Tibbie and 
Tibbie’s double, for I was indeed now much of 
his opinion that it was all a phantasmagoria, as 
he called it, and but a creation of my disordered 
and over-wrought mind. 

It was not till the afternoon that Sir Gilbert 
got off from Glenhaugh, and when I had seen 
him down the approach to the Abbeyfont high- 
road, he said to me : “ Gillicuddy, I have bid- 
den farewell to the Laird and had a long crack 
with him, and, my certie, I’m not so firm in 
my belief that he’s a daft man, for, before God, 
he’s as wise and rational of speech as any man 
I e’er met.” 

Ye spoke na o’ the troubles ? ” I asked 
with some anxiety. 

“Tut, man!” said he, “not I; but, Gilli- 
cuddy, this secret is wearing sorely on him. 
He’ll need your care, but I fear not for long, 
for what he is hiding is killing him.” 

I could not keep a tear from falling as he 
spoke, and I turned away to hide it* 


i88 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH, 


Sir Gilbert got down from his horse, and 
coming to me, said : Gillicuddy, I must shake 
your hand again. There, man, and let me say 
to you, you’re not to remember me with un- 
kindness for aught amiss in me, for I have a 
heart warm to you, and, indeed, I could love 
you like a brother.” 

He shook my hand warmly and with a 
glistening eye; but in an instant he tossed 
his head with a careless motion, and hum- 
ming a scrap of some lively air, got on 
his horse and went down the highroad like a 
cavalier charging at a tournament, and the 
last I saw of him he was speeding along the 
road, urging his nag in a mad gallop. 

After he had gone out of sight I went back 
to the house again wearily enough, to take up 
the duties before me, and indeed I felt as if 
a companion of worth and cleverness had left 
me, and that Glenhaugh would be drearier far 
without the company of Sir Gilbert. 

The rest of the day was dull enough. The 
morning had dawned in gray clouds, and cheer- 
less had been the mood of nature as the hours 
went by. I was oppressed with all things 
within and without, and I could have sat down 
in some lonely spot and wept like a child. To- 
ward evening the gloom of the day deepened, 


THE REMORSE OF A GREAT WRONG. 189 

and its depression seemed to rest upon every 
creature, as if the spirit of melancholy had 
taken up its abode with us. 

It was late in the afternoon when Marion 
came tripping to me, saying her father would 
speak to me; so off I went, and when I came 
to his door he bade me enter. I found him 
sitting alone, and his attitude was that of a 
man heart-broken and despairing. He was 
never more than a sad man, but to-day I could 
see the clouds were heavy over him. He sat 
on a low stool, and was bent forward with his 
face buried in his hands, and when I entered, 
he never made a movement or uttered a word. 
The picture of sorrow he was, sitting there, 
and my heart went out to him with a yearning 
of tenderness and sympathy. 

''Are ye no’ feelin’ weel the day?” I 
asked. 

He never looked up, but answered with a 
pitiful despair in his tone : " Oh, Gillicuddy, 
I’ll ne’er be weel again.” 

Well I knew his trouble, but I dared not 
touch it, so in my nervous haste to dissemble, 
I stammered like a simpleton and ventured to 
say: " ’Deed, if it’s an ailment o’ the body ye 
hae, there’s Dr. Smilie at Abbeyfont ready at 
yer ca’.” 


190 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

He looked up at me, wondering to hear me 
speak such foolish words, and then, with a 
smile on his face, made answer : ‘‘ Gillicuddy, 
ye hae the best o* intentions, and wad like to 
shield me frae the thoughts o’ the past, and the 
agony o’ them, I ken fine ; but I’m no’ a bairn, 
so dinna let yer kindness o’ heart interfere wi’ 
yer sincerity wi’ me. Weel ye ken that my 
trouble is no’ o’ the body, but o’ a mair serious 
kind, a sore disease o’ the mind and heart and 
soul, and there’s no physician can cure me o’ 
the trouble I suffer.” 

Little he knew how much of his trouble I 
knew; little he knew that, looking at him, I saw 
the picture of a wild tumult of raging mad- 
ness storming at the doors of a King’s palace, 
and, in that sea of passion, beheld one frantic 
madman, no other than he who sat before me, 
fleeing wildly from the place with the blood of 
a wife red on his soul. 

I am sure my master gave me credit for a 
great sincerity, and for a truly devout spirit, 
when, after a silence, I said to him : My dear 
master, there is a great physician o’ souls ever 
ready to hearken to the ca’ o’ his creatures, and 
he has given his word that he is ever near 
to those that are o’ a broken and contrite 
spirit.” 


THE REMORSE OF A GREAT WRONG. 191 

He looked up to me, and said : “ Aye, Gilli- 
cuddy, and that is true, indeed, for I think it 
maun be that I hae had great strength given to 
me to come through what I hae suffered. I 
hae lived, I think, to suffer a great punishment 
for a great wrong that I hae no’ the mind to 
tell ye o’. I must e’en suffer, for I deserve 
the chastisement, but, oh, I’m weary, weary 
o’ it, and wad fain begin a new life. Ah, but 
I’m sair forfouchten and weary. I hae looked 
for death to come, but he’s no’ like to come my 
road, and I think at times, if it were no’ for the 
righteousness I ken there is in God’s wrath, 
I jcouldna thole to bide and suffer.” 

Ah, but my master was a grand man, I 
thought, and a brave one, and I thanked God 
fervently for giving him strength to bear his 
burdens of sorrow and sin and remorse with 
such a grand fortitude. 

He paused for a space, and then went on as 
though speaking to himself, though he spoke 
my name from time to time : 

I hae seen a bit o’ trouble, Gillicuddy, and 
this heart o’ mine has passed through the fires 
o’ hell wi’ its burnin’ passions. I hae been 
like a frail bark adrift upon a wild ocean o’ 
wide expanse and immeasurable deeps, wi’ 
chaos and confusion swirling aroon me; aye, 


192 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


and the sky flashing oot ugly fire-gleams. Ah, 
but I hae seen sair distress o’ foul weather, and 
the memory o’ it is like a blight on me. I hae 
filled the volume o’ the past wi’ a wheen pages 
that arena comforting for me to read. I fain 
wad close the book and lay it doon forever and 
forget the story it tells, and yet, Gillicuddy, 
there are a wheen pages in it o’ fair reading, 
and lines that speak o’ love and hope and hap- 
piness.” His voice sank to a piteous moan, 
and as he bent low with his face in his hands, 
I heard him sobbing. 

Ah, what could I say to him? There was 
no thought within me to speak of hope or joy, 
knowing what I knew. There was but one 
consolation I knew he could receive, and that 
was a spiritual one, for I could see that he was 
as a man who had loosened from him the ties 
of earth, and was standing, as it were, on life’s 
last verge amid gathering night-shadows and 
silence, listening to hear a voice calling in the 
mysterious distance before him. 

I could find no words to speak, and just 
waited mute, for my mind was awed with 
solemnity, as though I stood at a death-bed, 
At last my master lifted his head, and there 
was a tone of rapture in his voice that gave 
me a thrill of awe. 



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THE REMORSE OF' A GREAT WRONG. 195 

“ Oh, Gillicuddy, but I yearn to hear the cry 
that cometh at midnight, and to gang into the 
marriage feast. I’d fain slip oot o’ time and 
into eternity. And, Gillicuddy, I hae heard 
aften and aften a voice that ca’s me there. Aye, 
it’s a sweet voice I hear, and a voice I ken week 
I hae heard it in my soul whisperin’ to me, I 
hae heard it in the wind as it went by me. In 
the night it has spoken to me, and once it cried 
to me in the glen, and ca’ed me, again and 
again. Do ye ken, Gillicuddy, it’s a spirit that 
speaks, the spirit o’ her I ca’ed my wife. Oh, 
Gillicuddy, I maun gang to her, I maun speak 
to her, and tell her o’ a’ I hae suffered, crying 
for pardon, for oh, but I’m humbled and sair 
heart-broken. Ye can ne’er ken the things I 
micht tell, the secret that is hidden here, the 
passion and the sin, the horror and the pain; 
for if ye did yer love wad turn frae me.” 

Well, well I knew the secret that was there, 
aye, and the passion and the sin of it; but far, 
far was my love from turning from him. 
That he had been driven by the storms of ad- 
versity beyond the responsibility of a human 
creature, that he had been beset, as he truly 
said, by sore foul weather of passion and mad- 
ness, that he had been deceived and misguided, 
and had done a deed of horror I knew, but 


19 ^ KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGN, 

never could I find blame for him, and never 
was it in my heart to think ill of him, but to 
pity him, as I hope God will pity me. 

“ I hae given ye a sad heart,’' he said, rising 
to his feet, “ but I pray God ye’ll ne’er hae the 
sadness o’ heart I hae this day, and hae had for 
mony a day. I hae let ye into the sanctuary o’ 
my grief, Gillicuddy, and I hae breathed to ye 
a secret thing that it is no’ for me to mak’ mair 
plain. Ye’ll no’ think ill o’ me for that. I 
canna explain it, but this day there was some- 
thing in me that bade me seek yer sympathy; a 
touch o’ that sweet and gentle human kindness 
that was aince mine, and which has come back 
to me this day like an echo o’ a tender melody 
o’ the days o’ my happiness. I think that the 
spirit o’ her I loved so weel has been near me 
this day. Shake my hand, Gillicuddy, and tell 
me wi’ a true heart, could ye find it in yer soul 
to forgie me if I had done ye a great and cruel 
wrang, and had suffered for it keenly, and had 
come to ye at last on my knees, crushed wi’ 
sorrow at it, asking for yer pardon, and yer 
pity, and yer love ? ” 

Aye, my ain guid master,” I cried, '' that 
I could wi’ a’ my heart, as God is my hope,” 
and as I said the words, I threw my arms about 
his neck, and just wept like a bairn, leaning my 


THE REMORSE OF A GREAT WRONG. 197 

head on his breast. For a space there was 
silence, and then, as he sat down and answered 
me nothing, I left him ; but I saw that his face 
was lightened up, and that my love had cheered 
him. 


CHAPTER XVIIL 

“l HAE A MESSAGE FOR YE.’’ 

When I left my master it was drawing on 
to the evening, and the darkness was beginning 
to gather. I had such a weight on my mind, 
with the melancholy converse I had had with 
my poor master, following upon the evil af- 
fairs I had gotten from Sir Gilbert, that I could 
not get myself to any duty, but just wandered 
aimlessly out into the court and down the ap- 
proach to the Abbeyfont highway, and stood 
there as lonely and miserable a man as might 
be. 

As I stood there, Esther Ricalton, coming 
from some errand at the Pinlawn clachan, 
turned in at the approach, and I gave her good- 
evening. 

I’m thinkin’ it will be a wat nicht,” she 
said, pausing when she saw me, the clouds are 
unco’ black and heavy aff o’er the Abbey glen, 
and there’s a watery sough in the wind.” 

198 


“/ HAE A MESSAGE FOR YEF 199 

Aye/' said I, I’d no’ say but there’ll be 
mail* than a mist before mornin’.” 

I see they hae left a licht burnin’ for me 
at the hall gate,” she said, glancing up the 
shadowy approach toward the house, that 
loomed a great, gray mass in the fast gathering 
shadows, lighted only by one yellow flame that 
flickered from a lamp hanging over the ser- 
vants’ hall. 

It’s a cheery blink o’ welcome for me,” 
she went on, but my sooth, Maister Gilli- 
cuddy, the Glenhaugh hoose is no’ so bright wi’ 
fire and licht as I hae aften seen it. Mair’s the 
pity for the evil that has fallen upon the hoose 
and its Laird.” 

‘‘ Ah, weel,” said I. It’s no wealth o’ 
gear, or guid name, that can bar a door against 
ill fortune.” 

Tell me,” said Esther, has ony news o’ 
my Lady been broucht to my Laird? ” 

“ Never a word,” said I, uneasy in my mind 
at my answer. 

Is it no’ like, think ye, Maister Gillicuddy,” 
said she, “ that the Laird looks for her back 
again ? ” 

'' Mair like,” I said, that his heid will be 
bent doon wi’ sorrow for lang years to come, 
and his gray hairs gang to the grave ere she 


200 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


come back. My Lady is deid lang syne, and 
will ne’er come back, and therie’s an end o’ it, 
Esther.” 

Och, wae’s me for my Lady,” she said, sor- 
rowfully, “ and God pity the Laird.” 

As she spoke the wind came soughing down 
from the hillside with a long dreary wail, and 
in my ears it sounded, I bethought me, like a 
voice of mourning, bewailing the pitiful fate 
of my Lady, and the sore distress and evil doom 
that had fallen upon Glenhaugh. With the 
wind came a dash of rain, and I felt it beating 
on my face. 

Ye’ll do weel to tak’ shelter,” said I, “ get 
ye in to the fireside, lass, and seek what cheer 
ye can, for ’deed there be clouds and rain baith 
inside and oot at Glenhaugh this nicht.” 

‘‘ I’ll heed yer advice,” said she, “ for I feel 
the spits o’ rain on my face. So a guid nicht 
to ye, Maister Gillicuddy,” and as she spoke 
she hurried up the approach, and left me stand- 
ing in the gloom alone. 

The rain was still flying on each gust of 
wind when later I went up the approach to the 
house, and when I had gotten there I heard it 
pattering on the paved court-yard. Before I 
entered the house, I stopped to look up at the 
sky, stretching black overhead, and to listen 


“/ HAE A MESSAGE FOE YE.'* 


201 


to the wrack of the night. A steady murmur 
of wind and a seething of distant rain came 
down from the hills, and far away up the 
slopes back of Glenhaugh, I could hear the 
rippling and gurgling of mountain streams set- 
ting in to make a night of it. Ah, but it was 
a night of gloom, and when I looked in the 
murk toward the hills where the storm was 
brewing and gathering, I pictured the terrors 
of the night deep in the hollows of the glen, 
with the groaning of woods and the shrieking 
of winds in the eerie solitudes where the wraith 
of St. Cuthbert guarded the Cairn. Like a 
solitary spirit of the gloom, I stood listening, 
while the night uttered its voices to me, and 
behind me the house of Glenhaugh, engulfed 
in shadow, slept under the black sky, lulled 
by the wind and the rain. 

Suddenly I saw before me, not three paces 
away, a figure blacker than the night emerge 
out of the dense midnight gloom and glide to- 
ward me. At the sight of it my flesh began 
to creep and my pulse to beat with terror. I 
was about to utter a cry and flee before it, 
when I was stayed by a whisper, husky and 
trembling. 

“Ah, but it’s a pitiless nicht, a hard and 
pitiless nicht for a body o’ my years to be 


202 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


abroad in. I hae come a weary road to see ye, 
Maister Gillicuddy.” 

I knew the voice; it was Tibbie Jamieson’s, 
and I cried: 

“ And what brings ye here at sic a time, and 
on sic a nicht ? ” 

“ Wheest, man ! ” she said, drawing close to 
me, and in the shadows there was something 
uncanny and fearsome in her presence that 
made me fear her beyond words. Wheest ! ” 
she whispered, ‘‘ I’ve something to say to ye 
that isna for ither ears. Come near to me, 
for it maunna be heard by ither ears that micht 
be listenin’. Come awa frae the hoose.” 

I’ll just do fine where I am,” I said, draw- 
ing back from her, and wishing myself safe in- 
doors with the rest of the Glenhaugh house- 
hold. 

'' Listen to me,” she said, '' I’m no’ here for 
naught at sic an hour, and in sic deil’s weather. 
Ye maun hearken to me, or there will be waur 
than rain to fa’ the nicht.” 

Speak oot, woman, what mean ye ? ” I 
said. 

She came close to me and, putting forth her 
trembling hand, took me by the sleeve, and, 
reaching forth her face so near to mine that I 
could see, in the blinking hall light, her hollow 


“/ //AE A MESSAGE FOE YE. 


203 


eyes and sunken cheeks, she whispered in ^ 
voice of secrecy awful to hear : 

I hae a message for ye” 

A message, and frae whatna body is it ? ” 
I asked, feeling her trembling grip on me. 

She clutched me tightly, and bringing her 
face near to mine, whispered in my ear : 

A message frae my Lady, she that was my 
Lady o’ Glenhaugh.” 

Her words sent a qualm of terror over me, 
and I drew away from her, as if her grip were 
the touch of the dead. 

Awa wi’ ye, ye fearsome woman,” I 
gasped. “ My Lady’s in her grave.” 

Wheest,” she said, she’s back again, and 
gin ye come wi’ me, ye’ll hae speech wi’ 
her.” 

In the name o’ God,” I cried, are ye a 
mortal that speaks to me! My Lady canna 
come frae her grave.” 

Hoots, man,” she said, “ hearken to me. 
I’m mortal like yerself; for a’ the ill that’s said 
o’ me. My Lady ne’er went to the grave. I 
hae seen her wi’ these een o’ mine and hae 
spoken to her, aye, and hae come frae her this 
nicht to bid ye gang to her. She’s back at 
Glenhaugh a living woman, and a puir, broken- 
hearted woman, and a sick woman, and this 


204 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


is the word she speaks : ‘ Gang and bring Gilli- 
cuddy to me, an he wad speak to me.’ Here, 
man, is a bit paper I was to pit into yer hand 
as a token.” She held in her hand a piece 
of crumpled paper, and I took it. 

‘‘ Gang to the licht wi’ it,” she said, and 
ril bide here till ye come back; but mind, no 
man is to ken o’ this but yersel’; that was her 
last word to me.” 

As she spoke she drew her cloak about her, 
and muttered shiver ingly : “ Ah, but it’s a piti- 
less nicht.” 

In a terrible frame of mind I went into the 
house, and, lighting a candle in the hall, I 
opened the crumpled paper, and there, as I 
live, was my Lady’s hand I knew so well, and 
these words written : 

** Come to me, Gillicuddy, in the name of 
heaven, without delay, and say no word, I 
charge you, to any soul. Tibbie Jamieson will 
bring you to me. Delay not, for I would see 
you at once.'' 

I put my hand to my head, and I could feel 
my temples throbbing. Was I gone mad? 
Had my anxieties shaken my reason ? I 
thought of the words of my master. He had 
said, as I well remembered, that ‘‘ he had heard 
the sound of her voice, and the words of her 


“/ HAE A MESSAGE FOE YE:* 205 

mouth/’ Was the spirit of my Lady among 
us, wandering materialized in our midst? 

Scarcely knowing what I did I went out 
again, dazed and bewildered. The wind was 
now grown fierce, and the rain was driving be- 
fore it, and the tumult of the night was so 
great that I could hear no word, nor yet be 
heard in speech; but, Tibbie moving away like 
a shadow, I followed by her side, dumb with the 
spell of wonder and fear upon me, and into the 
great howling black pit of the night we went 
forth, and getting to the Abbeyfont road we 
turned toward Pinlawn, and when we had come 
to the hollow of the glen, there into the pitch- 
black depth of midnight we turned and began 
to toil up the winding path toward St. Cuth- 
bert’s Cairn, and I knew we were making our 
way toward Tibbie’s cottage. 

Ah, but there was enough to strike terror 
into the soul of any mortal in this journey up 
the glen, and as for myself, I think there was 
no moment when I ceased from trembling 
as I followed this crooked old woman through 
the deep, dark murk. 

At times I was conscious of some object 
moving with me, a blacker shadow than 
the shadows around me, and again I would 
feel the fluttering of her cloak as it touched 


2o6 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH, 


me, but no word passed between us, for 
the voices of the night forbade it, and only 
at times was I certain that she was still the 
guide to my steps, and that was when she 
stopped and put forth her palsy-shaken hand 
to touch me. 

“Where was I going?” I asked myself. 
The answer set me to shivering. “ To have 
speech with my Lady of Glenhaugh.” Was 
my Lady in the land of the living ? That could 
not be; for Sir Gilbert had seen her thrust 
through with a mortal stab on that terrible day 
at Versailles, and my master’s sorrows and re- 
morse had been the outcome of that bloody 
deed. Had not Tibbie herself long since 
startled me with the fearsome question : “ Can 
the deid no’ come oot o’ the cauld grave, think 
ye ? ” What could it mean ! What devilish 
and grewsome errand was I making at mid- 
night in this howling tempest, with this hag of 
Satan ? 

Once I stopped and was about to turn 
back and flee from her in the darkness, but I 
remembered the words of the paper I still 
clutched in my trembling hand. Ah, that was 
a strange message I held, and no other than the 
hand of the living had penned it, and no other 
than my Lady, or my mind, weak and shat- 


BAE A MESSAGE FOE YE. 


207 


tered by all I had seen, was deceiving me and 
leading me on to madness. 

It was a long and dreary journey we had, 
buffeted by the wind and wet by the rain, when 
at last in the pitchy darkness a light shone 
upon us, and I knew we were near our jour- 
ney’s end, for the gleam before us was from 
the window of Tibbie’s cottage. 

When we had come as far as the threshold 
Tibbie lifted the latch and opened the door, 
and in the light of the flickering fagots burning 
in the fireplace, the bent old woman stood lean- 
ing upon her stick and beckoning me to enter. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


I THANK GOD FOR THE NEWS YOU 
BRING ME.” 

As Tibbie stood in the light of the fagots 
that flared upon her, and beckoned me to 
enter her dwelling, I trembled as if with the 
ague, dreading to know what was to be re- 
vealed; but I conquered my fears, and crossed 
the threshold, and the door closed behind me in 
a gust of wind. 

When I entered Tibbie shuffled toward the 
fire, and, turning toward me, stretched out her 
arm, pointing a trembling finger, and said: 

She is there^ that wad see ye.” 

I looked in the direction she indicated into 
the room adjoining, and the fitful light of the 
low fire starting up, it flashed sharply upon a 
woman’s face, and I saw the features of my 
lost Lady of Glenhaugh. 

God keep me,” cried I, am I looking at 
my Lady ? ” She came forward, her hand ex- 
tended to me, and in great and trembling emo- 


“ THANK GOD FOR THE NEWST 209 

tion I grasped it and pressed it to my lips, while 
I sank upon my knees before her. 

“ Aye, Master Gillicuddy,’’ she said sadly, 
'' it’s none other you are looking at. Little 
you thought to see me in this place.” 

The voice was my Lady’s, but, oh, it was 
changed. Weak and weary it was, and it 
sounded faint and low, sinking to a husky 
whisper. I looked .up into her face, and in the 
pale, wan features and the great beautiful eyes, 
there was the spirit of melancholy and suffer- 
ing, so eloquently appealing to me that I could 
contain my feelings no longer, but just burst 
into tears and bowed my head, while grief and 
sympathy throbbed in my heart past control. 

At last while I bent before her, speechless 
(for my emotion forbade utterance of words), 
she spoke to me: 

“ Tell me. Master Gillicuddy, tell me, in 
heaven’s mercy, what of the Laird ? What of 
my ” — she paused, suspending her ques- 
tion, and I felt her fingers tighten upon my 
hand which still held hers — what of my hus- 
band, and what of my wee lass Marion ? 
Speak to me, Gillicuddy, speak of them to me.” 

‘‘Thanks be to God, my Lady,” said I, 
“ they’re baith in health and strength, and oh, 
but sair they hae missed ye.” 


216 


KENNEDY OE GLEN HA UGH, 


She gave forth a cry that was the wail of a 
heart sorely overcharged with grief. At the 
sound, I looked up into her face, and my heart 
went out anew to her in compassionate ten- 
derness. Ah, but she was a beautiful woman, 
and like a creature of another world she looked, 
ethereal and spirit-like, as the fire-glow shone 
faintly upon her from the outer room, where 
Tibbie sat bent over the fagots, rubbing her 
chilled knuckles and muttering to herself. 

I could see that fell sickness had been my 
Lady^s lot, and she showed the marks of cruel, 
cruel pain and trouble, yet she was as sweet 
and lovely to look upon as an angel of para- 
dise, I thought. Her proud face was pale like 
death, and her cheeks were thin, but lovely she 
still was and saintlike, and when I saw her 
white hands clasped upon her breast, and her 
grand gray eyes turned upward, as if she 
thanked heaven for my words, I thought my 
heart would break, thinking of all she had suf- 
fered, poor unfortunate woman. 

After I had mastered composure enough to 
speak again, I said : 

Why are ye, my Lady, in this place, and 
how in God’s name cam’ ye here? We hae 
thought ye dead and gone lang syne, and sairly 
hae we missed ye and mourned ye.” 


“ thank god for the NEWsr 21 1 


And did he tell you my story? ” she asked, 
looking at me eagerly and fearfully. 

Not he, my Lady. Ah, not he ! ” I said. 

I saw her lips trembling, and then, as if she 
spoke to herself with no listener but her own 
heart, I caught the words she spoke : 

“ Oh, a cruel, cruel man he was ! '' and as she 
said the words she clasped her hands to her 
forehead in passionate despair, and moaned 
piteously. 

Little heart had I to distress her, but I could 
not hear her speak those words unanswered, 
so with gentleness and pity in my tone, I said : 

‘‘ Nay, my Lady, dinna say that. Never a 
cruel man was he, but a gentle and a just. 
And a man sairly tried wi’ evil chance was he, 
and oh, but a heart-broken man is he this day.'’ 

She opened her eyes wide and fixed them 
upon me, as if my words amazed her past rea- 
son. “ Master Gillicuddy,” said she, “ you see 
I have suffered, and you would not add to my 
suffering, I know. Little mercy or kindness 
would it be to dissemble where truth could not 
add to my troubles." 

'Deed, my dear Lady," answered I, little 
I dissemble. It is but the truth I speak; as 
God is my judge, I speak the truth." 

She smiled as I spoke, and shook her head 


212 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


slowly, as though she trusted me, and yet felt 
that little I knew of the truth. 

“ Ah, Master Gillicuddy,” she said, after a 
pause, ‘‘little you know of my story. That 
day I left Glenhaugh I left a letter to the 
Laird. It told the secret of my leave-taking, 
but of the things that followed you cannot 
know, for he dared not speak them, and I 
cannot tell. Ah, Master Gillicuddy, when you 
say he was never a cruel man, you speak of 
what you cannot know.’’ 

I broke in on her words, stopping her even 
as she spoke. “Ah, my Lady, I ken mair 
than ye do yerseF. It is ye that doesna ken. 
Ah, little ken ye a’ the things that I can tell.” 

She never let her eyes pass from my face, but 
partly rising from the chair where she had 
seated herself, and leaning forward, she 
caught at my words, and cried eagerly. 

“What mean you? If you have aught to 
tell, oh, tell me truly. Speak fair with me, for 
my mind is sorely troubled.” 

“ As God is to judge me, my Lady,” I said, 
“ I will speak but the truth and hide naught 
frae ye; and oh, my Lady, compose yersel’, for 
it’s a woeful happening I hae to tell.” 

She got to her feet, straining forward and 
holding the back of her chair, as if to steady 


“ THAI^K GOD FOR THE NEW ST 213 

herself from the shock of strange tidings, and 
I went on speaking: 

“ Full weel I ken a’ yer story, and it is like 
to mak’ my heart bleed when I think o' it. 
Sma' profit wad it be for me to speak false. I 
may e'en come blunt oot and tell ye at the start 
that I ken baith yer story and his. Never a 
word, mark ye, hae I gotten frae my master, 
but yet I ken the story o' my master's journey 
to France. Never a word got I frae ye, but 
yet I hae heard frae an eye-witness, strange 
and past belief as it may seem, o' that awfu' 
day at Versailles, when my master, crazed and 
mad, struck ye doon and left ye lying as 
one deid. 

Ah, my Lady, ye may open wide yer 
een wi' the wonder o' it, but as God sees 
me I hae heard it a', and yet never a word frae 
him. And, oh, my Lady, never would my 
Laird hae done sic a deed, had he gotten the 
letter ye left. Ne'er saw he it till back he had 
gotten after his mad journey, a journey he took 
in the frenzy o' his troubles after he had found 
the accursed packet ye had lost or hid, written 
by a devil that met his death at the hands o' 
the mob at Versailles, and — dinna stop me, let 
me tell a'. Ne'er got he your letter till back 
frae France he had gotten, and when he read 


214 


KENNEDY OE GLEN HA UGH. 


it — oh, I canna tell ye the sorrow and the hor- 
ror o’ that time. Little but pity wad ye feel 
for him, did ye ken a’ that I hae seen him suffer 
since that day. 

'‘Oh, my Lady, ye are to be pitied sairly for 
a’ ye hae suffered, but ye mustna judge my 
master unkindly, for grievously has he suf- 
fered, and sadly has he repented, aye, and lives 
this day a man past a’ hope and interest in life, 
in misery repenting the rashness and madness 
o’ his passion, and mournin’ the wife that he 
loved wi’ a’ the strength o’ a great, noble, 
manly heart.” 

I had spoken with a great earnestness of 
feeling that was upon me to vindicate my mas-' 
ter whom I loved so well, and never did I pause 
till I had come thus far, but now I took note 
of the effect of my words, and deep it was, for 
there was my Lady dropped into her chair, her 
eyes fixed upon me with an unnatural and 
steady gaze, awful to see. 

There was a silence awful and oppressive for 
a space, and never a word she spoke, but sat 
motionless like a statue of marble, staring 
wildly at me; then suddenly, like one most 
sorely distraught, she clasped her hands to her 
head and broke forth into crying and laughing 
together with so great a vehemence of passion 


“ THANK GOD FOR THE NEW ST ^1$ 

that no other thought had I but that her reason 
had fled. I was sorely disturbed, and at a 
great loss, thinking I had been but a cruel and 
foolish man to speak as I had, but after a bit 
space of time, quieter she got, although sob- 
bing as if her heart would break. Then it was 
that, still sobbing with most piteous voice, and 
yet with the sweetest smile of peace upon her 
face that e'er I saw on human countenance, she 
spoke, telling me the story of her unfortunate 
life since she left Glenhaugh. 

With tears of sorrow at the remem- 
brance, and with prayers to God for par- 
don of her offences, she told me of that 
terrible day at Versailles. Deep was my 
Lady's emotion when she dwelt upon this 
matter, and thrilling her words when she 
brought before me the scene wherein the Laird 
had confronted her like the very spirit of fate 
— when, in the riot of surging thousands, a 
wild and cruel man, crazed with unrelenting 
and angry vengeance, pressed madly upon her 
with curses shrieking from his lips, and ere 
she could a moment reflect that this man was 
no other than the Laird, her husband, there 
had come the flash of a blade, a throb of cruel 
pain, and all things passed away. 

When my Lady returned to conscious life. 


2i6 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


she lay kindly cared for by the women of mercy 
about her, who had watched her through fever 
and delirium. When strength returned, she 
had sought by questions cunningly put forth, to 
learn something of the story of the awful day 
of the mob’s fury, thinking to hear perchance 
of the Laird, but naught those about her could 
tell, only this, that among those that met death 
on that day, all were Frenchmen, and among 
these was one who was at first unknown, 
but afterward recognized as a gentleman of 
good French family, who had long been a 
stranger to France, but outlawed and accounted 
dead, and by name De Courtray. 

With a mind sorely troubled, and a heart 
filled with bitter sadness, she lay for long days 
longing for death, but time brought life and 
strength, and at last she was able to arise and 
move about. Then it was that there came 
upon her a yearning to go back to Glenhaugh, 
and there seek the Laird and vindicate her 
honor, begging anew for pity and forgiveness. 
Now that Courtray was dead, the hope was 
strong within her at times that the Laird would 
listen to ber in compassion, and pardon her for 
the ill she had done in hiding the secret of her 
past, but still ever against that hope arose 
despair, for the picture of the Laird in his 


“ THANK GOD FOR THE NEWS,' 


217 


wrath, following her in the madness of an un- 
forgiving hate, came before her, and she could 
find no voice that spoke of love or forgiveness. 

That the Laird had gotten the letter left for 
him, and had read in it her story, that he had 
read in it her words of love and heart-yearning' 
pleading, she never doubted; and so the vio- 
lence of his anger seemed the more cruel and 
relentless. For all these thoughts, still the im- 
pulse to return to Glenhaugh grew strong 
within her, and that which at all times gave 
strength and resolve to it was a mother’s yearn- 
ing and passionate desire to take her child 
fondly to her breast again. So it was that she 
journeyed back to Scotland, and by covert 
travel and unfamiliar guise sought the home 
of old Tibbie in the glen, and there besought 
the old crone, in gratitude for past kindness, 
to shelter her in hiding. 

She had lain at Tibbie’s a fortnight when 
her message came to me by Tibbie’s hand. 
It was often in that time that she had re- 
solved to see the Laird, but each time her 
heart had failed her. At night she had 
wandered from the shelter of the glen in 
Tibbie’s company, and had seen the towers of 
Glenhaugh, and the lights shining from its win- 
dows, but still ne’er could she find heart to 


2i8 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


descend the hills and stand at Glenhaugh's 
door. 

One day she had ventured forth as far 
as the Cairn, and there in the gloaming, across 
the gurgling chasm, she saw the form of a 
man, wandering as one lost. It was no other 
than the Laird. At sight of him she fell upon 
her knees, stretching forth her hands, and cried 
aloud to him, again and again, but he heard her 
not in the wild murmur of the falling waters, 
nor did the Laird see her in the quick falling 
shadows of the night; for he paused only as 
if to listen to the voices of the glen, and passed 
on. It was then my Lady hastened back to 
Tibbie’s, and resolved at last to send for me. 

When my Lady had related to me her story 
with many tears, and had come as far as this 
that I have told, she arose and knelt before me, 
taking my hands in hers, and went on most 
piteously : 

It was God’s own voice that bade me 
at last seek you. Oh, you’ll bring him to 
me, and you’ll bring my lass Marion to me; I 
must speak to her and take her in my arms, my 
bonny wee lass, my bonny wee lass ! ” Again 
she broke into a great and unrestrained con- 
vulsion of passionate feeling, as if her heart 
would burst with its fullness. 


“ THANK GOD FOR THE NEWS." 219 

■f'i 

It was pitiful to hear her, poor, sad woman, 
and I felt I could have laid down my life 
willingly to bring her happiness. After she 
had become a bit easier and quieter, she got to 
her feet and, crossing the room, sank limp and 
exhausted upon the little curtained bed, where 
she lay, as one who wearied with a heavy load 
had laid it down relieved, and yet was faint 
from the stress of it. 

Lying there before me with her face in her 
hands, and her voice gently moaning, I spoke 
to her words of promise and cheer, and after 
I had thus done there was a pause, which 
reverence for this sacred moment made me fear 
to break; so I sat speechless, and let the silence 
utter its eloquence of solemnity to me. 

When I had thus sat for a space, and while 
she lay silent, I set about relating many things 
touching the Laird’s search and anxiety, mak- 
ing plain the dreadful cause of his mad journey 
to France, dwelling upon his getting her letter 
at last, and the remorse and sickness and sor- 
row that followed. With tears in my eyes I 
told her of the Laird’s sad life, and a love that 
followed a woman wronged beyond the sphere 
of earth and through the portals of the grave. 
While I gave forth my master’s woeful story, 
she lay clasping her hands and weeping gently. 


320 


KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 


but there was on her face a smile of the sweet- 
est joy that ever rested on woman^s counte- 
nance. 

After I had spoken at great length, and 
she had asked me many questions, I be- 
thought me of returning to Glenhaugh, and 
when she saw me about to depart, she whis- 
pered to me, in a voice that was faint from 
excess of feeling : 

You’ll not forget to bring them to me. 
You’ve given me joy to-night. Master Gilli- 
cuddy, past all hope. You’ll bring him to me, 
and you’ll bring my wee lass to me, that I may 
lay my face to hers again.” 

“ Aye, my Lady,” said I, “ e’en that will I 
do, but I must tak’ my ain manner and time in 
the doin’ o’ it, for the Laird is na fit to bear 
a shock like this withoot preparation. A’ will 
be weel, I hope, but ye’ll bide in hiding, my 
Lady, just where ye are, till a’ things are 
ready.” 

She smiled upon me, promising to heed and 
trust me, and I left her, passing out into the 
night again, leaving Tibbie nodding before the 
fire in sleep. When I was out again I scarcely 
knew which way to turn, so black was the 
night, but the rain had fortunately ceased to 
beat, and I set off with little to guide me but 


“ THANK GOD FOR THE NEWSJ 


221 


the slope of the ground. After a slow and 
tortuous journey, I reached the Abbey font 
highroad, and made thereafter an easy jour- 
ney to Glenhaugh, where I sought my own 
room unseen, and, lighting my fire, dried my- 
self and sat down to think. 


CHAPTER XX. 

FORGIVE ME FOR THE WRONG I DID YE.” 

You may be sure I had much to think of, 
and some difficult problems to solve, looking 
forward to the unforeseen turn affairs would 
now take in the marvelous reappearance of my 
Lady. 

How would I break the news to my 
Laird? It would, of a verity, be a startling 
thing to say to my master, ‘‘ The dead has 
come to life ! The grave has given up the body 
of her you sent to her death ! ” 

My master had brooded long, and his 
mind was set upon one sore subject, and 
that was the death of my Lady. He had 
dwelt for long months, a man holding com- 
munion with the spirit of the dead. Had 
he not gone so far as to aver that the 
spiritual essence had a voice that spoke to 
the sensual ear ? A matter which I would now 
account for in the declaration made by my 


232 


FORGIVE ME THE WRONG I DIDN 223 

Lady that she had called to him in the glen, 
and which did also, I thought, account for his 
night wanderings thereafter. 

The more I thought over these matters, the 
greater thought I had that such a revelation as 
this resurrection from the dead, as it were, 
would be to my master a thing most serious in 
its direct effects and consequences. I remem- 
bered well what Dr. Smilie had said to me after 
we had nursed him back from death's door. 
Had he not said to me that his mind might not 
suffer another shock? Following the doctor's 
caution, I had ever maintained a studied silence 
touching my Lady, and now here was my Lady 
knocking, so to speak, at our door and crying 
to my I.aird. 

After much thinking on this theme, at last 
I came to the conclusion that in the startling 
revelation I had in store lay my master's fate, 
either fair or foul, and as the responsibility of 
it was greater than I could cope with, it would 
be wisdom in me to keep silence and seek at 
once the advice of Dr. Smilie, whose skill and 
circumspection would direct me in such a deli- 
cate business. 

That being the conclusion I arrived at, 
another question pressed itself upon me 
touching the meeting of my Lady with her 


2 24 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

wee Marion. My heart had an eloquent 
tongue in the consideration of this question, 
and while misgivings and doubts were in my 
mind, yet the appeal of a mother to see her 
child was like to cry down all the reason and 
circumspection I had. 

It was little sleep I got that night, and early 
I was abroad with a new load of responsibility 
upon me. When I could get the ear of the wee 
lass I told her, in a way fitted to her under- 
standing, the story of her mother's return; but 
first I had soberly enjoined upon her a most 
sacred promise that she would keep faith with 
me, and never lisp a word of the secret I had 
till such time as I gave her leave. 

Let it suffice for me to say that I got a firm 
promise of secrecy and obedience, and that 
same hour I slipped off with Marion, and saw 
her ere long in her mother’s arms, smoothing 
her mother’s cheek with her little hands, and 
fondling her with childish caresses in such a 
touching and sweet affection that I could not 
be a witness of it, but must e’en turn my back 
and give way to the tender feeling that over- 
mastered me. 

With a promise to bring Marion on the 
morrow again, and again giving my Lady the 
explanation that I feared to be too sudden in 


FORGIVE ME THE WRONG I DID:^ 225 

breaking the news to my master, but would do 
my utmost for the good and comfort of all, 
I took my leave, and back to Glenhaugh I went 
with Marion, spending the most of my time 
on the road in counseling and cautioning her 
to betray no part of the secret of her mother's 
return by word or act or look until such time 
as I told her would be proper, and placing be- 
fore her the jeopardy in which her father stood 
should the matter be brought to him without 
my knowledge and consent. 

How truly she realized the importance of 
my commands I cannot say, for she was but 
a child of seven, but, indeed, she gave me a 
promise to obey me in all I asked, and chatted 
with the sweetest words of the joys to come 
when her father and mother would be re- 
united. 

When I had left her safe at Glenhaugh, the 
first thing I did was to saddle a horse and post 
to Abbeyfont town, where I sought Dr. Smilie 
and laid the whole matter before him. He lis- 
tened with great interest to all I had to tell, 
and when I had done, gave me a very prompt 
opinion that was in keeping with my fears, 
urging me to keep the matter from my master 
till such time had elapsed in which his mind 
would be prepared to receive such a startling 


2 26 KENNEDY OF GLENHAVGN. 

surprise, and even then he feared consequences 
most serious and disastrous. 

So it was that homeward I started, my mind 
harassed with misgivings of a woeful end to 
the whole woeful affair if the most circumspect 
means were not used, and great judgment and 
delicacy exercised in bringing these two 
together. 

When I had gotten back from Abbeyfont, 
the first person I met was Esther Ricalton, and 
when I had asked her where my master was, 
she told me he was off with Marion. 

There was naught uncommon in that, but the 
information gave me a new anxiety, for now I 
feared the companionship of these two might 
be the very means of bringing upon my master 
the evils that Dr. Smilie had predicted, should 
my master suffer at this time any severe or 
sudden shock to his mind. 

I knew Marion to be a shrewd child, 
and I had solemnly charged her to speak 
no word to the Laird of what she had 
learned. I knew her love for her father 
to be both deep and solicitous beyond the com- 
mon in children of her years, and I had a great 
faith in her promise of secrecy, for she was 
ever a lass both earnest and truthful; but still, 


^'FORGIVE ME THE WRONG I DIDF 227 

notwithstanding all these assurances, my mind 
was ill at ease, for I feared that the art of dis- 
sembling in a matter of such essential interest 
to both father and child was not like to be 
maintained under the pressure of circum- 
stances, and that Marion, for all of her childish 
promises, might readily tell her father all in her 
childish affection and confidence. 

When I asked Esther what road the pair had 
taken, she said: 

‘‘ Tm thinkin’ it was the Pinlawn way 
they went, and, ’deed. I’d no’ wonder if 
it was up the glen to auld Tibbie Jamieson’s, 
for no’ an hour syne, it was she, the auld witch, 
that was wandering about Glenhaugh, and 
tellin’ some lang story to the lass Marion, and 
hardly had she gone hirplin’ aff, when the 
Laird and Marion just took the road 
thegether.” 

When I had heard this I had a great mis- 
giving, and no other thing was in my mind 
but a thought to follow them, and, if need be, 
come up with them and forestall whatever 
rnight tend to let my Lady’s secret come to my 
master. 

Off I started, then, and I had Tibbie’s 
cot in my mind, and when I had gotten to the 


228 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

glen foot, where it met the Abbeyfont road„ 
there who should I meet but Tibbie resting at 
the side of the road. 

‘‘ Hae ye set een on the Laird traveling this 
gate ? I asked. 

She blinked at me, mumping with her tooth- 
less gums, and getting to her feet, leaned on 
her staff, while her palsied body shook. 

‘‘ Aye,” said she, ‘‘ I hae seen him, but 'deed 
ye'll no' find him this road.'' 

And what road will I find him ? '' I asked. 

“ On the road to Abbeyfont,'' she said, 
pointing her trembling staff back toward Glen- 
haugh. 

“ Ye're tellin' me lees,'' said I, ye auld 
besom,'' and I knew she was deceiving me; but 
though she brought down a curse upon me, 
and reasserted her words with vehemence, I 
paid no more heed to her, but began to ascend 
the path to the glen that I knew would take 
me to the cottage. 

When I had come in sight of the thatched 
roof, and could get a peep at the cot among 
the trees, there I saw my master and Marion, 
hand in hand, not three paces from the door. 

I could have fallen where I stood; for 
all my fears were realized, and my master 
was on the brink of a precipice, and I was 



“ HAE YE SET EEN ON THE LAIRD TRAVELING THIS GATE?” 






t 


• % 


^'FORGIVE ME THE WRONG I DIDT 231 

powerless to help him. I was on the point of 
calling aloud to him in my desperation, with a 
vague thought that I might lure him away 
without arousing his shrewd suspicions, but 
the next moment he and Marion had entered, 
and I hastened on with a throbbing heart, and 
came to the door still open and unlatched, and, 
never pausing, in I went. 

As I stepped over the threshold, closing the 
door behind me, I heard my master’s voice 
speaking : ‘‘ And what errand had ye in bring- 
ing yer faither to auld Tibbie’s cot, Marion, 
my lass ? ” 

“ You’ll no’ guess,” said she, with childish 
glee and a merry laugh. 

‘‘ ’Deed no’,” said he, in a kindly humor, and 
as he said it he turned toward me with a smile 
on his face, for he had heard the click of the 
latch as the door swung to behind me. 

‘‘ r faith,” he went on, nodding toward me, 
there’s my guid Gillicuddy himsel’ newly 
come after us, and sairly peching at the climb- 
ing o’ the brae. Belike he’ll ken yer secret, 
my lass, and I’ll get an answer frae him when 
he gets his breath back again.” 

She turned to me, surprised at my entrance, 
and gave me a shy glance, being a bit abashed 
at being found breaking her faith with me, and 


232 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

seeing me knit my brows with the displeasure 
I felt at the disobedience she had been guilty 
of, she ran over to me, and, putting her arms 
about me, whispered: 

Dinna be angry wi’ me, my Gillicuddy; it 
was she that made me bring him here/' 

She," said I ; ‘‘ what she mean ye ? " 

“ Auld Tibbie," she answered. Dinna be 
angry wi' me." Then she laid her finger on 
her lips, and shaking her head at me, ran back 
to her father before I could speak, and, taking 
the Laird’s hands in hers, looked back at me, 
crying with a child’s playfulness : 

“ Noo, guid Gillicuddy, dinna tell, dinna tell 
him a word." 

The Laird, with a smile on his face, looked 
at me, and little he thought but that the whole 
matter was a simple bit of childish sport. My 
mind was ill at rest, yet I fain would have 
made a light matter of it, if such a thing could 
have been; but a dreadful misgiving was upon 
me, and I spoke out as I thought : 

Ah, my Laird," I said solemnly, “ I canna 
tell, but I would to God ye hadna wandered to 
this door, and oh, Marion, lass, I fear ye hae 
done a foolish and a wrang thing this day." 

Up spoke my master: “ Hoots, man, hoots! 
Dinna be ower crusty wi’ the bairn, Gillicuddy; 


“ FORGIVE ME THE IVROHG I DIDT 233 

it^s but some lassie’s prank. I fear baith you 
and I, Gillicuddy, are but sorry playfellows for 
the bairn. What recks it to gie the wean a bit 
sport wi’ me ? ” 

I felt such a fear upon me that I dared not 
trust my lips to make answer, so I spoke no 
word, but walked over to the stool beside the 
fireplace, and sat down and looked at the floor. 

As I sat I trembled with a great fear upon 
me, wondering what destiny had in store for us 
in this awful hour; for there stood my master 
not a pace distant from, the half-open door be- 
hind which was the wife he had lost and whom 
he believed dead ; aye, killed with his own hand. 
Sitting there, the suspense which I felt was like 
to destroy my reason, and it was in my mind 
to drop on my knees and cry to God for mercy 
upon us. My master never heeded me, but 
stood with his face partly turned to the door 
of the inner room, and, looking down upon his 
wee lass, who held him by both hands, and was 
smiling up in his face. 

“And could ye never mak’ a guess?” she 
was asking, swinging at my master’s arms. 

“ I was never guid at riddles,” said he, smil- 
ing down upon her. 

“ They say auld Tibbie is a witch,” the child 
went on. 


234 KENNEDY OF GLENHAVGH. 

“ Ah” said he, “ ye rogue, is it a spell o' her 
witchcraft ye wad pit on yer faither here? " 

“ Stoop doon,” she said, and let me whis- 
per to ye; but just answer me this first. What 
wad ye think if Tibbie could bring my ain lost 
mither back to Glenhaugh ? " 

At that my heart gave a thump and seemed 
to stop its beating. I looked at the Laird, and 
oh, such a start he made, and raised his arms 
with a startled gesture, as though a thrill of 
exquisite pain had passed over him. I saw his 
face flush, and then in an instant turn pale like 
death; and an expression of the most terrible 
anguish was written on his features. He 
turned toward the child in another moment 
with a dazed and puzzled face, as if he doubted 
he had heard the words she uttered. Then he 
sighed, and like a groan of piteous despair it 
sounded, and lifting his hand wearily, he passed 
it over his brow as though he would brush away 
some painful thought that lay heavy on his 
mind. 

After a dreadful pause, he spoke, and his 
face was rigid and pale like cold marble, and 
his words were unspeakably gentle and solemn, 
and he seemed rather to speak to himself than 
to the child. 

‘‘ And what was that ye said, Marion. Did 


FORGIVE ME THE WRONG I DID.'' 235 

ye Speak o’ yer mither? My God, lass! ye 
maunna speak o’ her. Her name is a sacred 
name, and oh, but she has suffered sair, sair 
wrang. Wad that she were back again that 
this weary, weary heart o’ mine micht fa’ at 
her feet, and tell her o’ a’ its love, and cry for 
pardon and for peace; but oh, that canna be! 
She can ne’er come back again. The grave 
holds her fast, and her sweet spirit has ta’en 
its flight to the company o’ angels, and there it 
waits and ca’s me.” 

As he spoke he lifted his eyes as if looking 
far away beyond the sphere of earth, and I 
saw his lips quiver with the most piteous emo- 
tion, so that my eyes filled with tears, and the 
pain of my sorrow for him was past all utter- 
ance of words. 

Still standing before him, with a childish 
awe at the sadness of his words, and the solem- 
nity of his bearing, the wee lass listened to 
him with a sober, intent face; but soon a pleased 
smile lighted her features, as her innocent 
young heart throbbed with the sweet secret it 
held for him. I saw her turn to me and smile, 
laying her finger upon her rosy lips, and then 
reach upward her arms to him to draw his 
face to hers, and whisper that which would be 
the very secret of destiny to him. 


236 KENNEDY OF GLENHA UGH. 

At that moment as I bent forward, my 
heart pausing in the silence to listen, I heard 
a low, pitiful sob, and there came a weird and 
moaning cry like the voice of an unseen spirit 
wailing in our midst. 

‘‘My husband; oh, my husband!'' were 
the words I heard, and ah, but there was 
the language of a sore, weary heart in the cry, 
and there was the speech of a tender love and 
the ecstasy of a soul-exultant passion of devo- 
tion, intense and sweet, in it. 

The next instant the door was softly opened 
from within, and there before the eyes of my 
master was my Lady, standing in the flesh 
before him, her face pale like alabaster, her 
eyes large and lustrous, a beautiful apparition 
of saint-like loveliness made spiritual by the 
touch of overwhelming sorrow and new-born 
joy. 

Reaching forth her arms to her husband, and 
pleading in silence with a tender yearning of 
love, I saw her smile upon him, and it was as 
if I had looked upon the face of one of God's 
own seraphim radiant with the light of heaven's 
beauty and grace. 

I looked to my master, and in a moment I 
was at his side, and to my dying day never 
can I shut out the memory of what I saw. 


FORGIVE ME THE WRONG I DIDT 237 

Ah, but his face was a thing to remember; 
for in it I saw the very reflection of his heart 
and soul. There was amazement, terror, pity, 
love, joy flashed upon his face in a moment, 
and it was but for a moment, for the next in- 
stant he raised his hands outstretched above 
him, and then clasped them to his head, 
crying : 

My God ! it is my wife. Oh, forgive me 
for the wrong I did ye.’' 

For a moment longer he stood wavering, 
with his hands clasped to his head and his eyes 
fastened intently on the face before him, and 
then, with a cry that died away in a tremulous 
moan, unutterably plaintive, he fell upon his 
knees at my Lady’s feet, with his arms about 
her, trembling and moaning like a child that in 
trouble finds a mother’s soothing breast. 

Then it was I knew that peace had come to 
him, for with his tears there came the break- 
ing up of that long spell of grief in which his 
soul had been held in bondage. Softening 
and healing were his tears, and in them I knew 
that all fears for his reason were washed away. 

As he knelt in an agony of mingled grief and 
rapture I saw my Lady bend over him fondly 
and tenderly, and I saw her white hands resting 
upon him. I saw my master arise and fold her 


238 KENNEDY OF GLENHAUGH. 

in his arms, looking with enraptured gaze into 
the lovely face that lay pressing close to his 
heart, and then I could hold back my feelings 
no longer, but sobbed and sobbed aloud, letting 
the tears fall unchecked as I turned away. It 
was then that Marion came to me, and I just 
put out my arms and drew her close to me, and 
she laid her head upon my shoulder, and the 
twain of us just wept together. 

It is but little more I need say. 

Little need have I to relate those things 
which may be guessed, or to dwell longer upon 
those matters through which, in the inscruta- 
ble providence of God, ever mysterious to all 
of his creatures, came blessing and peace out 
of sorrow and sin. 

I have told the story of my Laird as far as 
I have had the skill to tell it, and if the manner 
of it and the method of it are not like to win 
honor for me, there is still one merit I may yet 
claim, and that is the merit of sincerity; for 
I have written with a tender love in my heart 
for my master, and I have suffered again in 
these pages all that I suffered long years since 
when I helped to bear his burdens. 

As I have dwelt over all the events of that 
long-gone time, many a tear have I dropped 
over these pages, and as I close them my heart 


^'FORGIVE ME THE WRONG I DID.'* 239 


is still sad with the memory of them, and in its 
sadness is softened with compassionate tender- 
ness to all men, and so I may say that if the 
heart be touched with the suffering of one, it 
may the likelier learn a wider and deeper sym- 
pathy for all of God’s creatures who are weary* 
and heavy-laden with the pains and sorrows of 
the heart. 


THE END. 




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*' We understand that Captain Bonehill will soon be turning from sporting stories to 
tales of the war. This field is one ia which he should feel thoroughly at home. We are 
certain that the boys will look eagerly for the Bonehill war tsX&s.^—lVeekly Messenger, 

» THE MERSHON COMPANY 

Fifth Avenue, New York Rahway, N. J* 


THE ROVER BOYS SERIES 

For Young: Americans 

By ARTHUR M. WINFELD 

^ 

Each Volume Handsomely Illustrated and Bound in Cloth 

^ ^ 

THE ROVER BOYS AT SCHOOL; or, The Cadets of Putnam 
HaU 

Arthur M. Winfield has written many tales for boys, but he has penned 
nothing better than this story of life and adventure at an American military 
school, introducing as he does all sorts and conditions of boys, as well as 
several gfirls, and a plot that is bound to hold the reader’s attention from 
start to finish. Anybody who loves an out-and-out boy’s book should read 
this volume. 

THE ROVER BOYS ON THE OCEAN; or, A Chase foe a 
Fortune 

This is a complete story in itself, but forms the second volume of the 
series. During a vacation at the school, a fortune is stolen and carried off 
to sea, and Sam, Tom, and Dick lose no time in following up the missing 
treasure. On the ocean they fall in with numerous adventures, as thrilling 
as they are absorbing. 

THE ROVER BOYS IN THE JUNGLE; or, Stirring Adventures 
in Africa 

The father of the Rover boys had gone to Africa and had not been 
heard of for a long time. At last, unable to stand the suspense, the boys, 
accompanied by some older heads, start on a search for the missing parent. 
The hunt leads them into the very heart of the Dark Continent, where they 
become lost and fall in with many strange and savage natives. HowaU 
escape makes reading that nobody would care to miss. 

Other vohimes of this series in preparation 


Press Notices of Arthur M. Winfield’s Books for Young People 

“ He knows how to tell a story that will take possession of the reader 
from the first Rochester (A. Y.) Post-Express. 

“His school stories cannot be surpassed. They are true to life, and his 
boys are real, live, flesh-and-blood fellows.’’— Days. 

“A new story by Mr. Winfield is always hailed with delight, for the boys 
know they are going to get just what they are looking for— something 
bright and wholesome, without being either too sensational or too wishy- 
washy.”— Young People of America. 


c.« THE MERSHON COMPANY 

154 Fiftli Avenue, New York Rahway, N. 


Edward $♦ 

POPULAR 
BOYS’ BOOKS 

l2tnOf Clof& 

Purely American in scene, plot, 
motives, and characters, the copy- 
right works of Edward S. Ellis 
have been deservedly popular 
with the youth of America. In a 
communi^ where every native- 
born boy can aspire to the highest offices, such a book as Ellis^ 
“From the Throttle to the President’s Chair,” detailing the 
progress of the sturdy son of the people from locomotive en^- 
gineer to the presidency of a great railroad, must always ^ 
popular. The youth of the land which boasts of a Vanderbilt 
will ever desire such books, and naturally will desire stories of 
their native land before wandering over foreign climes. 

The volumes of this series are all copyright, printed from 
large, new type, on good paper, and are handsomely bound in 
cloth, stamped with appropriate designs. Price $i.oo. 

THE FOLLOWING CX)MPRISB THE TITLE? 

Down the Mississippi 

From the Throttle to the Presidents Qiair 
Up the Tapajos 

Tad; or, "Getting Even^ with Him 
Lost in Samoa 

Lost in the Wilds 
Red Plume 

A Waif of the Mountaim 


w THE MERSHON COMPANY 

tSc Fifth Ave*» New York Rahway, N* 





\ 


MAR 1 1900 
























